Kim Possible: Lost
by LJ58
Summary: Kim is lost, perhaps dead, and those left behind are falling apart. Especially Shego.
1. Chapter 1

_I do not own any Disney character named herein, and am only writing a nonprofit story for entertainment purposes only._

**Kim Possible: Lost**

**By LJ58**

**I**

Shego stared at the shirt she had found when she pulled her spare uniform out of the closet. The dark purple top had been casually tossed into the closet, unnoticed and left behind by its owner.

Like her.

She picked up the shirt, and pressed it to her face, inhaling deeply. The fabric still smelled of her. Sweat, musk, and a faint floral scent that was uniquely hers. One that still filled her senses even before she pressed the forgotten top to her nostrils to inhale the scents caught there.

She blinked away the first tears.

But they continued to flow unhampered without her consent, and she seemed helpless to stop them as a groan was torn from her throat as her knees simply gave way, and she knelt before her closet, crying into the garment that had been carelessly left behind.

Her heart thudded as a dull ache rose in her chest.

It wasn't supposed to be like this. She wasn't supposed to care. She was a villain. A thief. A mercenary. Bad-to-the-bone evil.

So why was she down on her knees, weeping like a lovesick schoolgirl into a stupid shirt that belonged to _her_?

"_Shego_!"

She tensed as she heard the fist hammering on the door of her quarters.

"Shego, are you in there? Are you back yet? Tell me if you're back, or not?"

God, what an _idiot_.

How could she tell him anything if she weren't here?

"Shego," he howled, pounding all the louder.

There was a brief silence, then she heard his predictable muttering as her employer walked away, liking complaining because he couldn't open a jar, or something similar again. Still, she had told him she was going out again tonight. He shouldn't have expected her to be here.

Not that it mattered.

Nothing mattered.

Because she was gone.

She all but crawled to her bed, and lay atop the covers, curling up with the purple top clutched to her like a child's security blanket.

She cried herself to sleep.

_**KP**_

"…..And that is when we will… Shego! Are you even listening?"

She lifted her bleary eyes to the blue-skinned fruitcake that was outlining a new master plan that could not possibly fail, but would. She didn't even care these days, because he seemed to thwart himself even before he got started anyway.

Not that it mattered. _She_ wouldn't be coming to help stop their evil plans. Not any longer.

The news still left her numb, and strangely forlorn.

"Shego? Are you all right," Drew asked with unexpected compassion. "Have I been working you too hard? Maybe you need a vacation? Is that it? You want another vacation?"

Shego, who wasn't even bothering to file her nails as usual, shrugged.

It didn't matter.

Nothing mattered.

Not any more.

_**KP**_

Ron got back into town late that night.

His mood, as it had been of late, was somber.

The moon was full and bright, but hidden by dark wisps of clouds that seemed to be filling the sky as a storm pushed its way into the area. He didn't pay any heed to them, or the moon as he trudged from the airport on foot, rather than disturb his family at the late hour.

Between his duties to Yamanouchi, and the missions he still tried to carry out in his longtime friend's name, he was starting to drag. His parents felt he should retire, but even if 'Team Possible' retired, Ron Stoppable, Mystical Monkey Master could not. He was still the future of Yamanouchi, and had obligations to Sensei, the ninja school, and his little sister, who was in actuality the Han, a potential source of immense power that would guide the future.

Hopefully to Good, rather than Evil.

Losing KP had not lightened his duties at all. It had only made them feel…..heavier.

With Kim, things had been frantic but fun. Busy, but spirited. She had been his sun. His heart. His very spirit of joy.

Now all he had left was duty.

Endless duty.

He froze as he paused at the gates to the cemetery where she lay buried.

He often visited the grave where what was left of her had been buried. It hadn't been much. A bloody, severed hand, and the shattered remains of her Kimmunicator. So little left to mark the passing of a larger-than-life woman who gave everything without asking for anything in turn. A woman that never gave up, and always stood for what was right. Who inspired so many others when she could have just turned her back and taken an easier road.

Something wasn't right tonight.

He sensed more than he saw a slumped, dark shape near the simple grave marked by the ridiculous statue the mayor had insisted on putting up. It was of Kim, standing defiantly in her 'power pose,' looking out across the city from her tomb.

The Drs. P hated it almost as much as he did.

Her brothers still plotted to destroy it, and had even sent it into orbit once.

A year later, it still stood. But the tweebs did have restraining orders to keep them from visiting the site without chaperones. The small pits and imperfections in the once smooth marble suggested the statue had spent a few days in orbit being bombarded by whatever. He still wasn't sure how it had been recovered.

He entered the cemetery as soundlessly as any ninja, and came up behind the kneeling figure. He frowned as he noted the small, colorful bundle set on the ground before the grave marker. The colors were actually familiar, and made him frown all the more.

"What are you doing here," he demanded as the visitor leapt to her feet, tense and ready as if about to fight or flee, then seemed to visibly deflate.

"Stoppable," the older woman murmured, and just looked away. Looked down at the grave where she had left her bundled, familiar costume laying.

"Shego?"

"No. Not any more," she said quietly. "I quit. I…..I just came to say…goodbye," she choked, and was suddenly crying.

Ron remembered some of the rumors he had heard at the end. Recalled how Kim would disappear for hours, or even days at a time without a word of explanation. Being the man he was, he didn't press her then.

Now, he wondered.

"You miss her, too."

The bright, green eyes looked over at him, and she only sniffed. "Did they ever…..? Ever f-find….?"

"Just torn cloth, and…..more blood," he told her, remembering.

**KP**

_Interlude:_

"Careful, KP," Ron shouted, dropping yet another henchman on the flying lair that belonged to the mad dwarf calling himself Professor Dementor.

This time, the man had the idea he would fly around the world with a portable EMP machine, and shut down every electronic device in the world, leaving his own shielded technology the only surviving, operating machinery in the world which he would use to take over the governments he had sent back to the stone age.

For whatever his reasoning, he began in South America.

Venezuela was screaming about capitalist plots even as Brazil went silent, which brought GJ and Team Possible into the fray. They caught up to the madman just over Peru, and the fight was on.

"Not this time, Kim Possible. This time I am _being ready_," he howled, and fired a concussive blast from a converted air rifle at Kim even as she stood in the open hatch they had blown open a few minutes ago to gain entry.

"Kim!" Ron shouted, putting down the last henchman as he turned on Dementor in time to see Kim go falling out the hatch.

He ran to the hatch, looking down, and saw her still falling toward the thick, green canopy, trying to use her jetpack wings to glide. Being below the EMP emitter on the flying lair, the jetpack was inoperative, though, and she was falling way too fast to be safe.

"It is now being _your turn_, buffoon," the helmeted lunatic smiled, and aimed at Ron.

Who leapt into the air, and bounced off the walls of the aircraft to land behind the man, slamming his domed head against the nearest seat several times in succession. He raced down the corridor to the flight cabin, smashed in the door intending to force the pilots to turn around, and gaped at the robotic controls locked by a long, colorful bar attached to both yokes.

"You are too late," Dementor sniggered as he staggered into the bridge. "I anticipated your arrival, and was already planning to leave you to your doom when you were trapped aboard my flying lair that will take you right into the side of the highest mountains in Peru! Nothing can break the Flite-Lock 9000 once it has been installed. And I have thrown the key away, leaving you _helpless_," Dementor crowed as he wiped away a trickle of blood from his neatly trimmed beard Ron was starting to suspect was dyed.

"Then call me 'nothing,'" Ron spat, and used five quick palm strikes to warp the thick metal bar before a sixth strike from beneath sent the bar clattering free of its grip on the aircraft's controls.

"Impossible! Well, I am still being….."

"Silent," Ron barked, and slammed a hard fist into the side of the helmeted freak's head.

He didn't even show remorse that he might have hit just a bit too hard this time as the very clear imprints of his knuckles were easily visible in the professor's helmet. He had other things to consider.

Sitting behind the controls, he shut down the robot pilot, grateful Kim had made him train on all those simulators last summer now, and turned the aircraft around as he toyed with the communications frequencies after he killed the power to the EMP emitters.

"GJ? Commander Du? It's Stoppable. You there?"

"Waiting on station, Agent Stoppable. Where is Kimberly? Have you reached….?"

"I'm on board, and the emitter is down. I have Dementor. But Kim fell into the jungle. Get Wade to track her, and get someone down there fast. I can't land this thing down there, and she fell hard."

"I am dispatching rescue teams now. I'm sending you coordinates for a GJ landing field in Juanjui."

"Sounds good. Just make sure KP is okay. Oh, and some of his henchmen bailed out in the same area. You might look for them, too."

"We'll handle it," Will Du assured him. "And meet you at Juanjui."

Four hours later, however, Will's people only brought grim and bloody news.

"This was all we found," the ashen-faced agent said as he opened a medical waste container to show a small, calloused hand with a familiar ring on it. The hand had been savaged, all but torn off just above the wrist. Beside the bloody lump of flesh was a shattered, ruined Kimmunicator. It looked like something sharp had gone right through it.

"Kim," Ron gasped. "No. This is impossible….."

"Those forests are full of jaguar, and other predators," the local agent told him. "I'm sorry. We're still searching, but….. From the blood we found on the ground, she likely didn't survive."

Ron's heart turned to stone as he firmly closed that box, and fought the urge to scream.

And tear out Dementor's twisted heart.

Not necessarily in that order.

Instead, he just walked away.

_End Interlude._

**KP**

"What are you going to do," Ron asked her quietly as if Shego weren't still wanted after she and Drakken apparently spurned their offered pardon after the Lorwardian thing a few years ago.

Shego's tear-streaked face looked up, and she gave a weak shrug. "I don't know. It doesn't matter."

Ron had the urge to ask why she wasn't celebrating, but he knew better. There was a grudging respect between her and Kim. There always had been. Even he wasn't sure all that was going on, but the two women had a curious dynamic that had them fighting beside one another as often as they fought against one another at times.

Certain rumors claimed that Shego had even gone to South America not long after Kim's death was announced, but came back only a few weeks later. The same week someone had all but killed Professor Dementor, who likely wouldn't be getting out of his wheelchair anytime soon from what the doctors told Wade.

"I kept thinking… She'd be back. She'd show up, and surprise everyone with another miracle, and….. And….."

Shego sagged, and Ron moved to catch her before she fell.

"Are you all right," he asked, literally supporting the usually sardonic woman who trembled like a frightened kitten in his arms.

"She's gone," Shego cried so quietly it was all the more frightening. "She's really gone."

"I know," he murmured quietly, thinking that just three days ago had marked the one year anniversary of Kim's death.

The place had been full of mourners again on that solemn anniversary, with people offering their sympathies from across the world. He was glad he was in China on another mission. He wouldn't have been able to face that kind of circus again. The first one had been bad enough.

"I know," he repeated, and turned and led her out of the cemetery. He didn't even think of calling GJ. Technically, Shego had been written off more than a year ago after she almost tore Drakken's head off when he apparently suggested something truly distasteful to the usually indolent mercenary woman. No one had seen her in all that time until tonight.

It was anyone's guess where she might have been, or what she had been doing.

Drakken, he knew, was still whimpering in prison, praying not to be found by his former 'assistant.'

He once would have headed right for Kim's house. This time, Ron headed for his own.

_To Be Continued…_


	2. Chapter 2

_I do not own any Disney character named herein, and am only writing a nonprofit story for entertainment purposes only._

**Kim Possible: Lost**

**By LJ58**

**II**

"It's only for a few days, mom," Ron assured her as the woman eyed the sad-eyed felon on her couch. "When I go back to Yamanouchi, I'm taking her with me."

"But, Ronald…..?"

"Dad, I know she's still wanted. But putting her in prison just now… It just feels wrong. It's not what Kim would have done. Besides, look at her. It's not like she's a threat to anyone anymore."

Shego barely even looked up at them as they discussed her fate. In the single day since their arrival, she had not eaten either. She simply sat there, mourning silently. Even Hana was affected by her grief, and sat close to her, the young girl patting her closest hand sympathetically as if trying to aid her by just her presence.

Shego barely noticed.

"All right, Ronald. But you're responsible for her," his father began.

His mother eyed him, adding, "And I expect her follow a few rules. Like regular bathing," she sniffed.

"Don't worry, mom. She won't be any problem."

Which, naturally, was when someone knocked at the door. Loudly.

And, naturally, it was Dr. Director.

"Ronald," she nodded when she came into the room. "I heard you had a visitor," she stated, showing no surprise at seeing Shego.

Shego didn't even look up when Dr. Director stood over her, her good eye fixed on her with the intensity of a laser.

"I head you did some pretty unspeakable things to Lipski this time."

Shego said nothing. She still didn't look up.

"There are rumors that claim you were the one that almost crippled Demenz."

The green woman still didn't react.

"That said, you're hardly my concern just now." She looked over at Ron. "We have a new villain that popped up in Rome. She calls herself Sonique, and she just deafened half the Vatican, before she abducted the Pope. Apparently, she is demanding she be named the new pope, or she will level the entire Vatican City. She apparently has the power to do it."

"Sonique," Ron frowned. "Sound?"

"Deadly sound. She can and did level walls with whatever she's using, and as I said, she knocked out, and permanently deafened quite a few guards and cardinals getting to the Pope."

Ron frowned.

"But….taking over the Vatican? What's her game?"

"I don't know. I don't care. I just want her stopped. Now. Obviously, she could take out any of our usual agents without effort. A ninja, though," he was told leadingly.

"I get it. Knock her out before she sees me coming."

"Exactly."

"I just got back from…."

"I know. And I know what you're planning."

"You bugged my house," Ron sputtered.

"Wade called me. He was concerned about your plans."

"Is he," Ron frowned, knowing it wasn't the first time he and Wade had disagreed over things since Kim had...left.

"I'm not. Take this mission, and I will give you the authority to…..sequester…. Shall we call her Miss Go again? Sequester her indefinitely in a place of your choosing. I won't even ask," Betty Director told her pointedly. "She just can't return until, or if…..certain conditions are met."

"What conditions," Ron asked.

"Doesn't matter," Shego finally murmured. "Nothing matters."

"Believe it, or not, Stoppable, I don't want to lock her up as she is. Even I can see she'd be dead in a week the way she's behaving. So take her with you, and keep her safe. I've not forgotten the debt we still owe her for services we both know she gave even if the rest of the world has no idea she can still be a hero."

"That's right," Shego grumbled, still not looking up. "Insult me. Kick me when I'm down."

There was no spirit in her muttering, though, and that concerned the head of Global Justice as much as the woman's condition.

She looked not unlike she was willing herself to die.

"All right," Ron nodded. "Just keep your agents out of my mom's house. We'll watch She… Miss Go. We don't need any babysitters making things worse."

They both knew what he meant.

In the past year, Will Du had been determined to show himself as capable of being just as celebrated as Kim had been. To prove that GJ, and the world didn't really need the fallen heroine. Some of his grandstanding had been costly. In damages, and in lives.

Ron had not forgiven him the last fiasco.

"You have my word," Betty told him. Then handed him a small flash drive. "Everything we have on Sonique. You might want to review it on your way out."

He simply nodded, and took the drive before he showed her out.

Walking back to the couch, he sat on the opposite sight of the mourning woman, and put an arm around her.

"I need you to go take a shower, and get cleaned up. Okay?"

"Sure," she murmured.

"When I get back, I'll take you someplace safe. Someplace where you…. Well, maybe you can find help."

"No help for me, monkey-boy," she grumbled, but didn't argue when Ron tugged her to her feet from the couch where she had sat for over a day since arriving. Even dozeing there, not even trying to move.

"Bath. Then food."

"I'll watch her," Han told his brother, the young girl showing a not too surprising maturity as she grew up.

Well, not to him.

"We'll watch her," his mother assured him, still wondering at her daughter at times.

Ron nodded.

"I'll just get out of the way, then. Miss Go…. If you need anything…." Shego just gave him a mournful expression.

Ron just sighed, and left.

He had work to do.

**KP**

_Flashback:_

Kim howled more in fury than fear as the concussive blast of air drove her out of the lair as if on wings, and back into empty air. She activated her jetpack about three seconds too late as she fell under the aircraft's body, and in range of the EMP emitter that was shutting down anything and everything electronic as she really wished she had thought to bring her parasail this time.

The stubby, but aerodynamic wings of her jetpack sent her into a less than controlled spiral as she plummeted toward the thick, jungle foliage as she heard Ron's distressed cry overhead.

"Great, Possible," she chided herself. She had been so worried about how to tell Ron the truth that she had not been focused enough to take out a lightweight like Demenz, aka Dementor. He was really going to razz her over this one when she got back.

If he didn't kill her once she got the guts to tell him the truth.

"C'mon, c'mon, c'mon, _think_," she urged herself, staring at the green carpet that was actually the top of the jungle below, and not the floor. "Has to be a plan," she assured herself.

A few feet from the first tree, her flushed features lit up as she snatched her grapple, and held onto it with both hands. She would have to time this just right, or she was still going to get seriously injured. Either way, what she was about to do was going to genuinely hurt.

Inertia, after all, could be a real pain when you coupled it with terminal velocity.

She yelped as she crashed through the first tree, feeling the impact, and the slightest deceleration in her descent. She fell another few feet, trying to bounce off thick branches rather than hit them head-on, and spotted the branch she needed as she now held out the grapple, and fired with a grim smile.

The hook shot out across the canopy, latched a branch just beyond the one she wanted that she knew was too slight for her weight, but might help, and held tightly as the line tested for three hundred pounds locked, and jerked her into a sudden diagonal swing as she bounced off trees and plunged through more branches as the first anchoring branch snapped suddenly, and she dropped again before the grapple found and lodged on a new one.

The jerk swung her high in one direction, and back in another, and she yelped again as she felt her body throbbing from shoulders to toes from the force of the jolt as she slowly began to swing over a twenty foot drop with not one branch below her.

Knowing she couldn't hold on forever, she shrugged carefully out of her jetpack harness, letting the extra weight fall free to the forest floor that was still pretty far down. She cringed at the sound of it hitting the ground, and then drew a cleansing breath as she forced herself to calm down.

Looking down as she clung to the grapple gun with numbed fingers, she sighed, and began to plot how to get down when she heard a low, feral rumbling.

Looking to one side, she saw nothing. Looking around as she twirled slowly at the end of her line like a human piñata , she gradually saw a faintly yellowish feline with dark spots.

"Oh…..snap," she moaned as the crouching beast on a nearby branch she couldn't have reached anyway eyed her with cold, ruthless eyes.

She let go even as the jaguar leapt, and screamed as it missed her throat, but locked jaws that felt like a vise around her left wrist.

The short drop slammed her down atop the animal, and she screamed again as she felt white-hot agony in her wrist as bone snapped and tendons were sheared as the jaws clamped down all the harder at the force of impact with the ground.

Fortunately, dazed as she was, the cat was dazed even more by her landing on it, and she was able to push away, and scramble backward from the animal that got dizzily to its paws, and shook itself like a dog that had just climbed out of the water. It paused, licking blood from its muzzle, and Kim only dimly realized it was her blood.

She held up her left hand only to find it wasn't there.

She felt shock cut into her like a cold, frigid knife, but instinct and training had her moving as jerked off her belt to quickly form a makeshift tourniquet around her ravaged limb to stop most of the blood that jetted from her mauled limb before she died from blood loss.

If she lived that long, she inanely thought as the jaguar turned to snarl at her, preparing to crouch again.

_Man_-_eater_, she realized. It was one of those cats that had apparently tasted human flesh sometime in the past, and decided it liked it.

Not good.

She slowly pushed to her knees, and waited, keeping her eyes locked on the cat as she fumbled in her equipment pack for something useful with her good hand.

She wrapped her hand around the small tube even as the feline snarled, and lunged for her again, it's jaws wide, and obviously ready to rip and tear at her. She moved instinctively, her right hand slamming into the big cat's temple as it pounced as she rolled away, and the cat fell sprawling for just a second this time before it was up and gathering itself for another leap.

By then, she had the cap off the tube, and the cat leapt into the faint, crimson bolt of light as her laser sliced away its whiskers, and one ear before scorching a line its side. It didn't cut deep, as Kim didn't want to just kill the animal. She was, after all, the invader here. Neither, however, did she wish to be the animal's entrée.

The animal shrieked its pain, and turned and bolted, leaving Kim to slump to her knees in relief.

She held up her throbbing wrist, and realized she was still bleeding badly. With the adrenalin fading, she could feel the vertigo threatening her, and knew she needed to get serious. Holding up her mauled arm, she bit back a cry of pain as she used her powered-down laser to cauterize the wound. Looking down at her still slim, wiry body, she realized she was bleeding from dozens of gashes and injuries, and even had more than a few bits and pieces of broken branches sticking out of her too soft, too vulnerable hide.

This, she realized as she reached for the first one low on her right side, was going to hurt.

Even as she tossed away the first thin twig that had speared her side, she saw her fallen hand laying nearby.

For Kim Possible, the girl that could do anything, it was too much. She felt her gorge rise as her stomach roiled, and she vomited what little she had eaten on the flight down from New York where she was in her last year of college.

That reminded her of what that ring represented, and her eyes went to the modest, but pretty bauble glittering on the bloody piece of flesh so easily torn off her body.

Ron.

He thought they were getting married after she graduated.

He didn't know that she had changed in the past four years. That she had found a new love. A surprising one, true, but genuine love all the same. She had finally figured out what she wanted in her life, and who. She finally figured out why she had such lousy luck with men, and why her relationship with even her best friend in the entire world just did not heat her blood as much as…..

She turned, hearing another snarl, and felt a weariness born of despair as she turned to see not that stubborn jaguar, but five large, black panthers staring at her with wide, green eyes. She bit her lip, shoving back her despair as she clutched her small lipstick-laser tube, and waited.

The five big cats moved in a circle, surrounding her, but did not move toward her as they did.

Kim could feel her dizziness increasing even as the cats circled, as if their actions were accelerating the numbness her shock and blood loss were bringing on. Even as she realized one of the cats was turning to leap at her, she found she was already too slow to even ward it off as she screamed not in pain, but a single name.

_Her_ name.

_End Flashback_

_**KP**_

Three days in Middleton, lost in a daze in Stoppable's care as she went through the motions, and now she was on her way to someplace she never thought to see on a private jet with the monkey-master, and his little sister.

Why he was bringing his little sister confused her, but she had long since stopped thinking of Ronald as the buffoon. She had been stunned beyond belief when she saw him channel that mystical power the first time. Stunned to her core as she saw him handle two giant Lorwardians like they were half pints without a clue. Stunned to her very soul when he literally flung them high into the air to fiery deaths with a simple flexing of his mystically-enhanced muscles.

Stoppable was no longer the sidekick. The buffoon.

He was the genuine deal.

And in the years since, he had proven that Stoppable was unstoppable. Still ever at Kim's side. Still occasionally comic relief by choice. But when he was needed, he could kick butt like no one she had ever seen outside the hidden Chinese monastery where she had learned her own martial arts.

For a full year after that epic showdown, Drew had kept his nose clean, and even tried to actually court her. In his own way, of course. He proved as clumsy at that as he was at anything else. Still, he managed to finally rid himself of the mutant flower, and afterward, his own twisted personality and drive came back to the fore, and he thumbed his nose at their pardon, and dragged her back into the world of villainy.

Only it wasn't as much fun any longer.

Kimmie and the new Stoppable put the breaks on his new plans faster than they had even in the old days. Which was saying something. Both of them had ratcheted up their game while Drew was still doing the same tired robots and death rays until she was ready to scream.

Then one night she saw her longtime rival sitting in a New York club where she never expected to see the inestimable redhead. She was actually looking beat, and more than a little down, and the very fact she was in the club where she had found the heroine said a lot. She also learned Kimmie couldn't handle wine worth a damn.

They woke up the next morning in the same bed, staring at one another with conflicting emotions warring in their own gazes even as they found it hard to move.

"Welcome to the other side," she had tossed off for lack of anything else to say even though she wanted to say so much more to the young redhead.

Kim, reading her as easily as she ever had in battle, had just unaccountably smiled, and asked, "So, are you going to be my tour guide?"

They managed an uneasy truce after that. Trading kicks and punches on missions. Trading far more intimate actions afterward. For over ten months they grew closer, and she had considered walking away from Drew, and his insanity once and for all in spite of her new contract when the news reached her on the Villain's Hotline.

Kim Possible had just been declared dead. Beaten, by of all people, Professor Dementor.

Drakken ranted for hours that his half-grown competitor in evil only won because he had first softened her up. Not that either of them truly thought she was gone. Until they televised the State funeral, and all the dignitaries flowed into Middleton to attend the gaudy media spectacle she just knew the Possibles must be choking on, knowing well James Possible's aversion to all things circus.

She couldn't believe it, though. Kim had to be lost. Or laying low. She found out all she could, and flew to Peru herself. She spent weeks in the jungle, but found nothing but bugs, and hungry cats. In the end, even she had to admit her redheaded lover was really gone. She flew home to break into prison just to _break_ Dementor.

The only reason she didn't outright kill him was because she wanted him to live to suffer. And he would suffer. Just as he would never want to take off that stupid helmet again. Not after what she did to him.

Only that made her feel all the worse. Worse, because she knew in her secret, well-guarded heart that Kim would never have done what she had done. That she would never have condoned it. She went back to Drakken, only to find that stupid shirt in her stupid closet where the stupid cheerleader had actually once snuck into her private quarters in that stupid lair just to bring her a gift.

Somehow, she had ended up losing her shirt, and had to wear one of hers home.

Odd how that shirt had stayed lost until then.

And then that next morning Drakken had to go and open his mouth. Had to rant about how the world was now his because the annoying no-longer-teen foe was finally gone. She didn't even realize she had snapped until she was walking away from the battered, well-singed form of her former employer. She disappeared because she was good at such things, but then she remembered the anniversary of her most cherished enemy, and felt she had to come to Middleton to finally pay her respects.

To finally say goodbye.

And ran right into Ron Stoppable of all people.

She looked up as the pilot announced they were preparing to land, and Hana deftly snapped her safety belt as she only ignored hers. If she went flying to slam into a bulkhead it could not possibly hurt worse than she already felt.

"We'll take a taxi up to the mountain, but then we have to walk. Up to a climb," Ron asked cheerfully as he rechecked the light baggage he carried for them before settling into his own seat. Rufus was no longer with him. The aging mole rat was left at home now as his years began to catch up to the little mammal. His absence seemed to mark Ron almost as much as _her_ absence.

"I can walk," she nodded faintly.

"Life does go on, Sheila," he called her, using the name she had finally given him simply because she could not use that other any longer. That woman was gone. _Dead_. Along with her lover.

She eyed Ron.

Had he known? Suspected? Would he hate her if he found out? Would he despise her if she told him now? Toss her out, and let her live or die on her own?

It was telling that she didn't even care one way or the other. She remained silent simply because Kim was her secret. Her burden. She wouldn't share their secrets with anyone. She would carry them to her own grave.

She fantasized briefly about being buried with her, but then she remembered Kim wasn't really buried. She was….

She sniffed and shuddered, and Hana, closest to her seat, put a small hand on hers to pat her. "Don't worry," the smiling six year old told her. "Sensei will help. You will see."

She gave a very weak smile.

Were all heroes so optimistic? She couldn't remember being that way when she was…..

She didn't even think of her brothers any longer. Even Hego gave up on her after her following Drakken back to evil a second time. It was telling that he even cut off her access to the Go Tower, which she had learned belatedly, and erased any mention of her presence in the team from all the old records. Wally had told her that one when she bumped into him a few months back.

"Some people," she murmured, "Are past help. Or hope."

"No. There is always hope," Hana told her sagely, still patting her, making Ron smile and nod.

"I'd listen to her, Sheila. She knows what she's talking about."

Hana beamed at her brother.

She said nothing to that. Baseless optimism. Well, she saw how that ended. She had seen it all too often.

_To Be Continued…_


	3. Chapter 3

_I do not own any Disney character named herein, and am only writing a nonprofit story for entertainment purposes only._

**Kim Possible: Lost**

**By LJ58**

**III**

"Welcome to Yamanouchi, Shego-San," the old man with flowing beard bowed to her.

"I…..don't use that name…now…"

"Nevertheless, it is who you are. What you are," he told her as he cut her off, and gestured to the old-fashioned buildings within the high walls of the hidden school

"And you know who I am? Was? And still…..welcome me," she asked incredulously.

A lean, willowy Japanese girl smiled as she bowed, too. "We trust the monkey-master, Shego-San," she told her as Hana stepped forward to bow low to them, too. "If he welcomes you, it is our honor to welcome you."

"But….."

"Come," the girl told her, taking her pack from her. "I shall show you to your quarters where you may rest. Afterward, we shall speak of what you might find here."

"Yori's cool," Ron told her. "You can trust her."

"Stoppable-San, it is good you have brought the Han," the old man said he and Ron walked away with the little girl. "I have had a vision…"

She heard no more as they parted, and she followed Yori one way, and Ron and his sister went the other. Dispirited as she still felt, she couldn't help but be curious about the old man's words.

"Why did he call Hana 'the Han,'" she asked as the ninja girl led her to a small barracks that obviously housed only women.

"He has not told you? I suppose it will do no harm for you to know, since you are here, and will learn it soon enough anyway."

"Learn what," she frowned.

"Hana Stoppable is the manifestation of an ancient power long prophesized to change the world. She is known as the Han. Raised properly, she will make the world a long unrealized utopia if she survives."

"Survives?"

"The Han has many enemies. As does the monkey-master, who is charged with preparing and protecting the Han. Their enemies would like to turn her to evil, or failing that, simply slay her. Stoppable-San is bound by honor to train and protect her until Hana is able to reach her own destiny."

"And all this time I thought he was just a buffoon who lucked into mystic kung-fu," she admitted.

"Oh, no," Yori told her as they entered the barracks that were empty at that time of day since most of the inhabitants were off on duties of their own. "Stoppable-San is a great warrior with a heart unlike any since the first master who established Yamanouchi generations ago to watch for, and preserve the Han."

"Who knew," she murmured, and then realized something from the way the woman spoke.

"You love him," she realized as Yori's bland mask slipped for the first time.

"Shego-San, we all love the monkey-master. His destiny….."

"No. You love _him_."

Yori sighed. "What I do, or do not feel is unimportant in the greater scheme of his destiny."

She reached out, putting a hand on her slender shoulder that felt hard as stone beneath her hand when they stopped before an empty chamber. "Take my advice, and tell him. Love…. Love is too precious to risk. If you don't tell him now, you may….. You might never have…..another chance," she choked as she stepped into the room, and just dropped her knees to cry again.

As much as she had been crying lately, she was sure she should have been long cried out. But the tears kept coming every time she thought of…..

"I see," the ninja girl said as she came and knelt beside her. "You have lost your love?"

She said nothing as the girl's hand rested on her shoulder.

"I, too, admired Possible-San. And I envied her. For she possessed the love and devotion of the world's greatest warrior. Yet, to my undying shame, I wished for her to be gone."

She said nothing to that.

"As she is not here for me to apologize to, Shego-San. Perhaps you might take my apology in her place until you meet again."

"Meet…..? You don't get it. She's gone. Dead. Eaten…..! Oh, God. _Eaten_ alive."

"Shego-San," Yori told her quietly. "She may have died, but she died a warrior's death. In my culture, we believe that spirits continue beyond death, and those destined to be together will eventually find one another in the next life."

She gave the girl a bleak stare, but said nothing.

Yori finally rose, then moved to stand before her, bowing low as she said, "I offer you my genuine sympathies, and my most heartfelt apologies that I might have somehow cursed Kimberly-San, and ruined your happiness. Forgive me," she asked, and dropped to bow even lower.

"There is nothing to forgive. _She _would never have faulted you, and neither do I," she told Yori quietly. "Just….go. Please, go, and let me sleep."

"Of course. I shall be near if you need anything."

"Sure," she said as the soft whisper of the door sliding closed was the only sound that marked the ninja's going.

She lay down, and didn't even bother to remove her boots.

It was just easier to lay there, and do nothing.

**KP**

"How are you feeling," Ron asked her in the fifth week of her stay.

It said something that she was starting to watch people now. That she came out, and tried to help with some of the chores around the school. She didn't fight. She didn't train. She just worked. Master-Sensei suggested she might be seeking penance, as much as oblivion.

Ron had the feeling he knew why. Or, at least, a part of a reason.

It was ironic to him, though, that the woman who had spent so many years trying to kill Kim now seemed to grieve her loss the hardest.

"I'm all right," Shego told him, still idly raking as the late summer turned toward autumn, and some of the trees were already shedding their leaves.

"Master-Sensei would like you to lead one of the beginner classes."

"Huh?"

"One of the instructors fell ill, and we're short-handed."

She stared around them at the busy groups of students that seem to have their divisions, though they all seemed pretty much the same to her.

"I'm hardly fit to teach…."

"Sensei felt you needed a challenge. It's just for a while, until the instructor gets back on his feet."

"What about the other guys you had?"

"Secret missions," he smiled. "In fact, I'm leaving myself…."

"Again?"

"Just for a while. Things to do, you know?"

Shego glanced around again, and nodded.

"I guess I can try."

"Just push the basics. Some of the newbies sometimes forget how important they are," he stated blandly.

"Let me guess, you learned that one the hard way?"

"Don't we all," Ron asked, sounding more like the buffoon she remembered.

"Maybe some of us," she grumbled, but still didn't sound like herself. Far from it.

"Okay. I'll let you go see Sensei, and he'll let you know the drill. I've got to get going."

"Right. Mystic destiny, and all that, right?"

"Actually, my vacation is over, and I'm expected back at the restaurant," he grimaced. "Even monkey-masters need to pay bills," he sighed.

She said nothing to that as Ron left. It was over two weeks later that she realized Han was gone, too, and she never even noticed her departure.

She noticed very little as the days seemed to bleed together as she worked, or spent time showing arrogant novices just how bad they were, and then returning to her room to sit in silence until finally succumbing to exhaustion. Still, there was no real passion in her any more. No ambition. It seemed there was no life left her, and she wondered just how long she could gone on like this before she simply gave up herself.

She didn't think of seeing Kim again in another world.

She knew all too well which direction she was likely headed. It wouldn't be to whatever heaven had claimed Kim Possible. That was one thing that kept her from taking what would have been a natural step to her mind now.

That singular fear that she would forever be lost to the one woman that knew and understood her better than she did herself. Lost to the one woman she had learned to love.

After a lifetime of selfish indolence, that love had genuinely surprised her.

And it was gone before it could truly blossom.

As every night since her arrival, she cried herself to sleep as those thoughts continued to torment her.

**KP**

"You are up early," Sensei's familiar voice spoke from behind her as she sat on the step, staring out at the pale horizon where the sun had just started to rise.

"Couldn't sleep," she murmured, not as bad as she had been when she first arrived, but still not doing much better when left to her own devices.

Two days ago, three of the regular instructors came back. Two took over the novices, and left her to just the usual chores. They didn't divert her very much any more since most of the leaves were gone now, and the trees, and the grounds, were clear.

"Walk with me, Shego-San."

Shego stood up, only then noticing Ron was standing nearby. She nodded, but said nothing as Ron bowed to them both before they walked away. She waited, but Sensei said nothing as he led her to the garden when he settled on a bench to study the fish in the small pond.

"Tell me, Shego-San. What do you see," he asked, gesturing at the pond lit by the first rays of the sun.

"Water. Rocks. Fish," she delineated without interest.

"Some would only see the surface. Or the stones beneath. Some would see only the flashes of color of the fish as they swam about. Some might see all three, but still miss the truth. Look closer," he ordered.

She frowned, and then paused as she realized, "I see our reflections," she realized.

"Boo-yah," came the dry reply. "Now, tell me. _Which_ is the reflection? The you in the water, or the you above the water?"

"Well, in the water."

"Are you so certain? Is it not possible that the shape in the water is looking out, and thinks _you_ are but the reflection?"

"Okay," Shego sighed. "Look, my Chinese master tried to get me to wrap my head around those koans and stuff, but…..I have to be honest. I've always been a here and now girl, and I never could quite….."

"That, Shego-San, is why you suffer. But to find the heart of your dreams, you must learn another way."

"Why bother?"

"Because, Shego-San," he smiled that secret, smug smile of his that really grated on her at times. "_I_ have had a vision. Kim Possible is _still_ alive. And only you may find her if she is to stay that way."

Shego had absolutely nothing to say to that as she stared at the pond again, her jaw hanging.

"How? Where….?"

"Not yet. First," the old man told her. "You must prepare. You must be ready for what is to come. Will you trust me, Shego-San?"

"Anything," she turned to tell him. "Anything you want, if you just help me find Kim," she almost pled with him.

The old man only smiled.

"First, you train in earnest. As I said, you are not ready for what is ahead. Not yet."

_**KP**_

_Flashback:_

"_Shego_," she cried even as she tried to fling herself back and away, but knew she was too late.

She screamed again as the jaws missed her throat, but long, sharp claws found and raked her sides as the hind legs tried to rake at her belly to tear her open. She stabbed the now active laser into the panther's side, and blood and gore splashed her even as another cat screamed, and ran off with a small dart in its side.

It made six or seven feet before it dropped dead.

Kim weakly shoved at the panther atop her that was still now, not yet realizing her laser had found it's throat, and sliced it open. The other panthers had fled, and she was blinded by the dead feline's hot blood as she finally pushed the heavy animal off her to sit up, using the ragged remnants of her top to wipe her face and eyes.

As she blinked against the red haze still blurring her vision, she gaped at the nine, small men in simple loincloths that ringed her. One of them was poking at the cat with a short spear as others held small bows with more of those darts.

She listened to them jabber for a moment, then everything caught up to her, and she fell back into a gray haze that quickly turned black. Then she knew no more.

She didn't hear the men seem to argue over her as they eyed her strange color and size. She didn't notice when they tore off what little remained of her top to study her injuries, and her maimed hand. They ignored her dismembered hand after a single glance, never heeding the small, metal device attached to a shredded synthetic band that lay nearby.

Finally, they formed a litter, and two of the nine lifted her to carry her away, leaving not one trace of their passage as four others carried the dead cats on a pole they cut to manage the feline's weight. Tonight, they would eat well, and they would have several stories to tell. Of the hunt. And the sky-witch that fell to the ground to strike down a panther with but a touch.

Their shamaness would tell them if the omens were in favor of sparing the sky-witch, or letting her die. After all, they were only hunters. They were not equipped to handle sky-witches, or whatever argument she had with the gods that caused her to be cast out. So they carried her to the village for the shamaness to decide for them.

_**KP**_

She woke in agony.

Every inch of her body was on fire, and she didn't understand why.

She tried to sit up, but found she couldn't. She lifted her hands, but found one missing, and didn't understand why that made her so terribly frightened. Her mind seemed shrouded in a fog, and she wasn't sure, but she felt she should be dead.

Even as she moaned, and tried to sit up, a small, stocky woman that seemed older than humanly possible came into the darkness that surrounded her, and eyed her with canny, dark eyes. She said something in a tongue she couldn't decipher, and then scooped up a thin, pale gray sludge from a bowl in a gourd cup, and set it to her lips.

She instinctively tasted it, and gagged violently.

The old woman cackled, and swatted her hand away to pour more of it into her mouth before she could close it.

She wanted to retch, but it didn't come back up. It just pooled in her belly and sat there like liquid stone.

"Ugh," she complained, and finally just turned her head away, and thought to close her mouth. Tightly.

The woman cackled, but put the gourd away. She then pulled the hide cover from her, proving she had been unable to sit because someone had tied her to the ground with stakes that held leather straps across her badly scarred body. She looked down at pale, puckered flesh that looked as if someone had tried to flail her alive.

The woman seemed to understand her confusion, and make a raking gesture as she gave a very eerily accurate impression of a panther's growl.

She shrank back, green eyes wide, and stared fearfully around her.

The woman laughed again, then she began to babble on in her incomprehensible tongue as she make sweeping gestures, and strange moves that made no sense. Finally, the woman stopped, eyed her, and said one last word that sounded like 'Turnip.'

Which, obviously, made less sense than anything else that had happened.

She was getting sleepy again, though, and she thought she might have been drugged.

She barely remembered laying her head back, but she knew when she woke abruptly to find herself staring up at the trees and jungle around her. She rolled to her feet, standing there clad in her pants, bra, and boots, and nothing more. She still wore a bandage around her wrist, but she was otherwise in fair shape considering the freshly puckered scars and scratches covering her body.

She still had no idea where she was, or why. She was remembering a degree of what had happened, and wondering why someone had not come to find her, but in the middle of the jungle, with the sun hidden from view just now, she had no idea which way to go, and how to find help.

She held up her injured limb, and remembered a large feline's jaws.

Cringing, she realized she had better find some way to defend herself, or she might end up on the menu again. A quick check of her pockets told her everything was still there. Everything but…..her Kimmunicator! She looked around, but didn't see the indispensable device.

Sighing, she refused to give in to despair just when she was finding out she was still alive. After all, life was hope, and she was all about hope. She pulled out her laser, found it had just enough charge left to do what she needed, and went to find a suitable sapling. A short time later, she had serviceable spear, and the tube still had enough charge for maybe a few more small bursts before it was gone.

Now all she had to do was find food and water, and a direction home.

Only what she recalled of where she had been dropped into the jungle wasn't helpful. She was somewhere in northern Peru, and many, many miles from the nearest settlements. Provided it wasn't an unfriendly, rebel community. That meant she had to be doubly careful about even approaching anyone even if she saw people. She was, literally, on her own out here.

Still, she was certain her friends were looking for her. That people would be missing her, and that they would be coming after her.

She had no idea that almost four weeks had passed, and she had spent most of it in a feverish haze, crying out for a woman whose name was coincidentally similar enough to a native goddess that they thought her blessed enough to try to save.

Not blessed enough, however, to risk harboring after she was well, in case she had earned the ire of the gods who had apparently cast her out. Better to let the gods decide if she lived or died on her own, than risk their village's safety with an outcast from the sky kingdom.

Not that she knew any of that. She only knew she passed out under the fangs of a huge cat, and woke up to the cackling of a weird, old woman. One that apparently had left her to the graces of the jungles after inexplicably bothering to tend her wounds, and save her life first.

Kim turned, and looked around.

Then looked around again.

Okay. Food and water, and shelter. Then she would deal with directions, and a plan. For now, she had to survive long enough to be saved. Or to save herself, if it came to that. Because she was never one to sit and wait when she could be acting.

It wasn't her way.

Setting out toward a hazy silhouette on the horizon, she hoped she could find something to guide her in the right direction. All she knew just now was that she was lost in a jungle, and that wasn't enough to find a way home. Fortunately, she was a Possible. And anything was possible. She would survive, and she would get home.

To Ron.

And Shego.

Especially Shego.

Because she still had to tell Ron about her real love.

Now _that_ was the drama, she grimaced as she carried her new spear, and headed down what seemed an animal path, guessing it was the fastest way to find water.

She never saw the dark eyes that tracked her.

_End Flashback_

_To Be Continued…_


	4. Chapter 4

_I do not own any Disney character named herein, and am only writing a nonprofit story for entertainment purposes only._

**Kim Possible: Lost**

**By LJ58**

**IV**

Shego sat near the mound on the far side of the school where several ruined buildings yet to be restored still set.

"You're saying _that's_ really Monkey Fist?"

"Hai," Yori told her. "Or, it is where the temple of the YoNo took him. In reality, he could be anywhere now, as the temple is not bound by space or time. But that is where it swallowed him, and bound him to his fate after the Han defeated him."

"And she was only _two_," Shego exclaimed, turning to see Hana running past with four ninja on her heels. She had returned recently, and seemed to be having more fun than not in what passed as training for the spirited child.

Just then, she was laughing at her pursuers as she turned to run backwards, playfully taunting them before she jumped high over a wide chasm left by the quakes during that attack, and leaving her pursuit to almost blunder blindly into the ravine.

Yori only smiled. "Stoppable-San has taught her much. But most importantly, he has taught her laughter, and compassion."

"And I thought I was good," she murmured, watching the little girl lightly touch down on the far side of the ravine, and leap back even as the ninja recovered, and leapt after her only to lose her as she raced back into the nearby forest to lose herself before they could return.

"She is the Han," Yori replied casually.

"Right. I got that part," she said.

"Master Sensei said you are leaving us soon," she finally said.

"Yes, I…..I have a quest," Shego nodded, still chafing at the weeks of training that kept her from going out and finding her lost love.

"I do not know what you seek now, but I pray you find the peace you lost before you came here."

"I know what I'm looking for," she nodded somberly as she eyed Yori who had not been told of the old man's vision. So far as she knew, she was the only one that knew of it. Why, she didn't know, but she had a purpose again. She had hope again. "And this time, I'll find…..it," she amended, rather than what she almost said.

'_I'll find you, Kim_,' she swore silently. '_I swear it_.'

"If Stoppable-San, and Sensei trusts you, then so do I. Do not hesitate to call on us if you need assistance, though. I should like to think we are…..friends, now," Yori asked uncertainly.

Shego sighed. "A few years ago, I'd have laughed in your face," she told the girl honestly as she rose to her feet.

"And now?"

"Now, I'm not laughing," Shego told her, and bowed to her. "Thank you for your hospitality," she told the younger girl. "And your friendship. They both mean more than you can know."

Yori only smiled.

"And trust me. You'll have to make the first move. He may be a monkey-master. But Stoppable is still just a guy when it comes to women," she smiled back at her.

"Hai, I have come to that conclusion myself. It is part of what makes him all the more precious to me."

"Good luck."

"You, too," Yori told her as they parted.

Ron was at the gate as she decided to take her leave late that afternoon after the Sensei finally hinted it was time for her to 'blossom anew,' as he put it. He held a small pack of his own, but she didn't think he was leaving just yet since he had only just returned.

"I have a going away present," Ron told her.

"Don't worry. I won't tell anyone about…."

She gestured around them.

"I'm not worried about that. Sensei is pretty sharp about these things, and if he trusts you to go on this quest he gave you, then so do I."

"You guys just throw trust around all over the place, don't you," she tried to tease him.

Ron only smiled. "Anyway, this is for you. I thought….it might be appropriate."

She took the small pack, and noticed how light it was. Pulling it open she stared at the green and black bundle revealed.

"Maybe you can make it stand for something _good_ again," Ron suggested quietly.

Shego closed the pack, and slung it over her shoulder as she tried to regain her composure. "You're all right, Stoppable. But you're still blind as a bat, you know that?"

Typically, he frowned at her in confusion.

"Yori _loves_ you, idjit," she told him bluntly.

To her surprise, he replied, "I know. But…..it's complicated."

"Still waiting for Kimberly," she asked pointedly, wondering if he knew anything of her quest.

"No. No, I've…..I've buried that part of my life. But I'm not sure if I'm ready to go through that again."

"Look at it this way, buffoon," she couldn't help calling him. "How often do you think someone like you is going to have a hot, ninja chick chasing after him? Sooner or later, she might wise up. Better strike while you can."

He only chuckled. "Sounding more like yourself, Shego?"

She smirked, but only just. "Just trying to open your eyes, o' not-so-wise monkey-master. Don't lose another one."

Ron's face sobered now as he told her, "I won't. But don't you give up again, Shego. I think you're better than that. I think Kim knew it, too. That's why….."

She stared at him as the gates opened, and she realized only then.

"You _knew_?"

"Mystical monkey powers come with a lot of bonuses. It was hard not to notice some things."

"You never said anything," she half spoke, half asked.

"I figured you two would either get over it, or step up. I was willing to wait to see which happened first."

"Even though….."

"KP was my best friend since forever, Shego. I loved her. I loved her enough to want her happy, wherever that happiness rested. Now, be careful out there, and remember your lessons. I might not be there to bail you out next time."

She snorted. "As if."

"Seriously. Be careful."

"Do you know where I'm going," he was asked suddenly as Shego studied him.

"Not a clue," he admitted. "But I've learned that when Sensei sends you on quests, they tend to be the dangerous, life and death, run screaming and hide, kind."

"For you, maybe," she retorted.

Ron only laughed as she bowed to him, and he bowed in turn.

Impulsively, she sauntered out, tossing a wave over her shoulder as she drawled, "Later, losers."

Ron's laugher followed her for the first few miles of her walk down the mountain.

_**KP**_

_Flashback:_

Okay, she was pretty much lost.

Mountains rose before her, and she couldn't hope to climb them with the little gear she had left, and in the threatening rain that had turned the rock to slippery glass with the cool mist coating everything. Not in her condition. For months she had ducked predators, fought monkeys, and even giant snakes for food. She slept fitfully in short periods until she was pretty sure she would never know a full night's rest again.

Not that she slept at night.

Mostly, she huddled in a high tree, spear clutched to her side, and listened for the big cats that were her true bane.

One thing was certain, wherever she was, she was not getting over those towering mountains. Not with one hand. That meant either turning back, or taking another direction parallel to the mountains. The problem was, she was still turned around, and wasn't sure which way to go. Logically, she knew one way would take her to the ocean, if she didn't find someone that might actually help along the way. So far, she had only encountered rebels that she had thankfully managed to slip away from without alerting. She could just imagine her chances with them.

Unfortunately, if she went the wrong way, she could end up going farther south, which meant going farther from home, and help.

She wasn't sure exactly how much time had actually passed, but she guessed maybe two to three months. Maybe more. She lost track of time far too easily lately, and it was getting harder to judge it as she focused on just the moment to moment chore of survival.

She wanted to scream at the unfairness of things when she heard it.

A small, twin-engine aircraft flying low over the jungle. She looked up, saw the metal body gleaming in the rare flickers of sunlight through the overhanging clouds, and noted its direction. Taking it as a sign, she turned, and began moving after it. Things were looking up. She just had to keep believing, and things would be better. She _would_ get out of this jungle.

And she would _never _eat another rodent again. She might not even eat meat again.

_End Flashback_

_**KP**_

"_Find the path in your heart_," the old man had said, "_And it will lead you to your true reflection_," he had told her, suggesting he knew a lot more than she had guessed.

The way Stoppable had known a lot more than they had realized.

All those weeks Kimmie agonized over how and when to tell him, and he had already known.

_Gah_! Why was nothing ever simple?

"Senorita," the pilot called to her at her when she growled audibly in disgust at the world in general. "Are you all right?"

"Peachy, Juan," he was told as she noticed he was getting ready to land. "Just feeling stupid. Again."

"Surely such a pretty lady is not one to be stupid," the Latino pilot smiled suavely.

"Save it, amigo," she told him. "My heart belongs to a woman. A very special woman. And I have to go find her."

"In this jungle? At this time of year? Ah, Amiga, I must tell you, if she is lost out there," he said as he approached the jungle strip. "Then I fear you will not be finding her. If the guerillas do not get her, then the beasts or natives will."

"You don't know this girl," Shego told him as the aircraft jolted hard, and rolled to a stop. "If there is a way, she'll survive. And I know she's waiting for me. I feel it," she said, touching her chest under the simple, green blouse she wore.

The jungle was not quite the place for a synthetic, plasma-resistant catsuit guaranteed to make you sweat, and not enjoy it. Not yet.

The aircraft rolled to a stop, and even as Juan shut down the engines, he moaned, "Uh-oh. Senorita, I think you have a welcoming committee. Only I doubt you are going to feel too welcome."

Shego moved to stare out at the dusty field surrounded by the jungle and saw about two dozen men in fatigues. All carrying heavy weapons.

She sighed. "Why is it always something?"

"I'm afraid you are probably going to be held for ransom. Or worse."

Shego, not being a complete fool, eyed her pilot. "You little rat. You sold me out."

The man with a thick mustache and a balding head only smiled and shrugged as he shut down the engines. "It is that kind of world," he said without apology. "I live here. If I happen to sell an American woman or two to the rebels…? Well, such is life."

"Well, do you mind if I change before I meet my new tour guides," she asked, and reached for her pack.

"It does not matter. You won't be wearing much in the days to come," he smirked.

"Now, you see, _that_ is where you're wrong," the suddenly scathing woman he had marked as harmless if rich drawled as her right hand flared with green fire, burning away the makeup hiding what proved to be very real green skin.

"Madre Dios," he cried in alarm, right before he lost consciousness.

"Yeah, I get that a lot," Shego smirked before pulling off her civilian clothes to reach for her costume she had not worn in over a year. She would have to thank Stoppable, it seemed, because no way her civilian garments, or her borrowed ninja gear would hold up if she had to really cut lose. Ordinary fabric had a way of burning away if she really fired up her plasma.

Glancing outside the aircraft as those swarthy men approached the plane with readied weapons, she had a feeling she was about to do just that.

Kicking open the door just as someone rattled the handle, she jumped out to smirk at the men gaping at her admittedly voluptuous body, and held up two glowing hands.

"Okay, suckers. Easy? Or hard?"

Shego walked away fifteen minutes later with her pack slung over her shoulder, and a few borrowed weapons, wondering why they always went for the hard way.

_**KP**_

_Not Very Long Ago:_

Kim was still panting hard, feeling the burn on her bare side where a rebel's bullet had grazed her. She was down to her boots, and her very short, very worn cargo pants that were little more than shorts rapidly becoming a skirt of sorts by now.

That plane had led her to a small town, all right. A town run by drug lords. She had barely gotten out of there alive, and the men had been hunting ever since she had blundered into the small town that was built right into the jungle without any dividing point to better hide it from DEA or government officials that might come looking.

She felt like she had been running forever, and she had finally managed to climb one low-lying plateau only to stare in horror at the endless jungle that stretched out in all directions. Unless she looked up at that high, unassailable ridge before her. Things were not looking good. The rebels were aware of her now. Not many half-naked redheaded American girls running around in the jungle. And they were all looking for her.

Along with the panthers and jaguars.

One in particular that had a missing ear and scarred side that seemed to actually still be hunting her.

_Sore loser_, she would complain, but no one was listening.

Not the rebels, and certainly not the big cats.

She gently touched the graze low on her side, and listened for the sound of the men. Nothing so far. Not since that last one shot at her, and put speed to her feet she didn't realize she had left in her. She was going to be barefoot before long, though. Her boots were fast falling apart of late, and that was going to slow her down even more.

Not good. Not good at all.

She hunched down in the tree she had scaled like a three-legged lizard when she heard a twig snap, and five men came into view with weapons at the ready.

Okay, so burning down that opium field hadn't been the smartest thing she had ever done. She had hoped it would distract the men, and let her slip around the drug lord and his rebel friends so she could keep going on her way. She still took the aircraft as a sign, and tried to keep going in that direction. Only more and more, obstacles kept getting in the way. Obstacles with guns, and bad attitudes.

The men went past almost as silent as ninja, obviously well versed in jungle lore. She held her breath at one point as one of them looked up, but he didn't do more than wipe his brow, so maybe they didn't think she could climb. That was a point in her favor if so, she thought grimly as she touched the sore wound on her side still seeping just a bit despite the fact it was more flesh wound than not.

Her body was leaner and more wiry than ever, and her skin a near bronze despite being under the jungle all this time. She had been exposed to the sun enough that it had burned her almost as dark as some of the natives, and only her red hair marked her as otherwise.

The men were almost out of sight when one of them suddenly stopped, and looked back.

The monkey chattering over her head drew their eyes, and she cringed as she did her best to slip lower behind the thick greenery, praying they didn't see her as one man lifted his rifle. The monkey screeched, and fell with a heavy thud, and one of the men cursed his companion for giving their position away, and wasting ammo. They left with the man still jabbering about wasting bullets that did not grow on trees as Kim stayed hunched down with her eyes on the monkey.

Despite all else, her mouth watered.

It had been a while since she had ate that well. Roast monkey would be a treat after the vermin, insects, and bits of fruit she had scavenged of late while on the run. Her ribs were really starting to show lately, and she would love to eat one decent meal for a change. If she could find a place to risk a fire.

_**KP**_

Shego continued to pick her own way through the jungle. She was actually north of where Kim had allegedly died, but she was doing what Sensei told her, and followed her heart. She tried to think very hard like Kim would do, and realized she would pick a course north to try to strike out for home. Considering the terrain, it actually limited her progress since the Amazon Basin to the east would be just as effective a barrier as the mountains to the west.

That left a surprisingly narrow strip of jungle for her to follow.

Having a few illicit contacts left in the wilds of Columbia from her wilder days, she knew her best course was right down the path she had predicted after she flew in as close as she could after doing her best to gauge Princess' likely progress.

In short, she guessed.

For almost two weeks she was once again lost in the seemingly trackless jungles, seeking clues or signs of her missing friend, lover, and erstwhile opponent, but finding nothing.

She was almost literally boiling with frustration until she came across the scorched fields where peasants were being forced to replant new crops of opium or cannabis for their masters. Sweaty, tired, and beyond irritable, she fried the first idiot to even think about turning his weapon on her.

Not badly. Just enough to remind him to respect his betters.

They let her pass after that. Not one of them even looked her way, though she saw a lot of them crossing themselves and murmuring about green devils. It wasn't long before she heard someone mention a '_red devil_.'

The rebel didn't want to say anything at the start, but dangling him upside down over a very long drop with her plasma encased fist slowly scorching the rope holding him loosened his tongue in the end. It seemed that a crazed redhead was burning down their fields all over the jungle. They chased her back and forth, but so far, she seemed to vanish like a phantom every time they gave chase.

She wanted to laugh with glee.

That definitely sounded like her Princess.

Leaving the man to manage on his own, she realized she had somehow missed Kim, and cut due north again.

Leaving word whenever she found any rebels or drug runners that the red devil was hers, and they should leave her alone. Hopefully, they would listen. After all, she still had a rep of her own, even if she had been out of the biz for sometime now.

She was beyond giddy as she realized Sensei had been right. Kim was alive. And she was close. Very, very close now. She just had to find her.

Somehow.

_To Be Continued…_


	5. Chapter 5

_I do not own any Disney character named herein, and am only writing a nonprofit story for entertainment purposes only._

**Kim Possible: Lost**

**By LJ58**

**V**

Kim was past tired.

Tired, hungry, and getting a little angry.

At first, she had burned a drug field just trying to get away.

Now, they were making it personal, and chasing her back and forth, and keeping her from getting on with her trek home. She admitted to being just a little spiteful as she started burning every field she came across.

She had found eleven so far.

Even she knew she had been lucky, though. There were more men that ever hunting her now, and more than once, she had been scored by hot lead as she tried to escape potential ambushes, or simply blundering because she had been so tired she missed something.

Blind luck.

That was all she had left now.

She sat under a tree, feeling the inevitable rain patter around her makeshift shelter, and wishing she was home, and warm, and eating…anything except jungle food.

She would even let Ron drag her to Bueno Nacho! Which for her, was a secret loathing, though she tried not to hurt his feelings, and kept to salads just to be safe.

How long ago had that been?

She sighed, and held up her scarred wrist.

Things were going to be different now if she got back. _When_! Still, no matter what happened. There wasn't much use for a one-handed heroine.

She heard gunfire, and froze, knowing she was a sitting duck on the ground if they came this way. Still, that gunfire meant someone, and she could guess who, was shooting at someone else. Or something.

Animals, much as it still bothered her, were on their own. But if they were targeting innocents again, Kim just could not sit there in good conscience if they were hunting people again. Of course, she realized as she grabbed up her spear, it could be another trap.

Well, it wouldn't be the first, she thought grimly, and eased out of her makeshift shelter as she loped down the animal path rather than risk the open trail made by the men. She was getting closer when she realized the gunfire was trailing off, and then she smelled something odd.

Something sharp, and bitter. Like ozone. Something beyond familiar.

"What is it with you _morons_," someone shouted just a bit manically as a burst of green fire lit the gloom of the rain-swept jungle. "Do you know what that tent cost me," she demanded as Kim froze, peering out on a small clearing to see Shego clad only in the charred remains of a pair of shorts and a top, blazing with green fire as she confronted over a score of the fatigue-clad men that had been chasing her for what felt an eternity.

She watched in genuine awe as the woman moved with a sleek grace that suggested she had improved, and took down men firing in vain at her as her body's comet power melted every slug before it could touch her.

She, however, had no problem dropping the men with fists and feet as she moved like an unleashed dervish among the men.

Then she spotted one man pointing a rocket launcher at her back, and Kim didn't even hesitate. She shouted, "Shego!" even as she launched her spear at the man, catching him low in the side and making him misfire so the round went high, and arched down to land in one of their jeeps parked not far away.

The vehicle exploded, and Shego and the remaining men yet standing turned to face her.

Shego just stared, mouth open, eyes glistening as Kim ran straight for her, then leapt up, and dropkicked the rebel about to try to stick a knife in her lover's back.

"Getting sloppy, Emmie," she called her with a hoarse teasing laugh as Shego realized they were far from through, and painted a feral smile on her face as she roared with laughter, and turned on the still conscious men with blazing fists.

To the last man, they turned and bolted, several of them even flinging aside their weapons. In their haste, they even left the jeeps behind as they simply ran.

"Kimmie," she turned and choked out, staring at her.

"Shego," she croaked, and held out her arms.

"I've missed you," they both said as one, and Kim laughed, declaring, "Jinx, you owe me….."

"Anything you want, Princess. Anything you want," Shego promised her, and hugged her fiercely to her own nearly naked body since her plasma had pretty much finished off her sleepwear.

The man Kim had speared was still moaning in agony, when suddenly he jerked, and fell still. He had been trying to pull out his pistol when a small dart suddenly blossomed in his throat.

Kim frowned, staring at him, and at the dart, and Shego gasped, "Damn, Kimmie. I didn't know you had that in you."

"The dart isn't mine. But…..I think I've seen them before," she said, looking around the jungle. They didn't see anyone, but even Shego swore she could feel eyes on them. When no threat materialized, they hugged again, and Shego finally suggested, "Let's get out of here."

"Please, and thank you," Kim laughed, not wanting to let go of her even though Shego had to dress. She even gave Kim a spare blouse and shorts, pulling on her own costume again, but just left the tent and bedding since it was pretty much shredded where the rebels tried to shoot her in her sleep.

That was the last time she tried to reason with anyone. Next time, they were all toast.

_Borrowing_ one of the still functional jeeps left behind, she helped a now shaky Kim into the seat, and drove straight for the airfield where she had landed. It was not actually that far away, proving she had been doing a bit of going in circles of her own. Kim almost broke down in tears when she saw the aircraft. She didn't doubt the aircraft would still be there. The pilot was suitably terrified of her once he realized who she was, and her warning to wait had been more than serious.

"Hang on, Princess. I'm taking you home. I promise," she told Kim, finding the aircraft, but no pilot. She didn't care. They didn't make much she couldn't fly herself when necessary.

The aircraft taxied down the runway, and rose into the sky even as the rain started to fade, letting the moon shine down on the damp jungle, dark eyes watched with approval. The sky-witch had been restored among her own.

It had been wise of them to aid her. That meant fortune would smile on their village. For surely she would tell her fellow spirits of how she had been aided by their tribe. Turning back to the hunt, the hunters first stripped the dead outsiders of anything valuable.

One hunter carried the sky-witch's blooded spear back with him as a gift to the shamaness. She would want to know how this quest had ended. She had claimed all along that the sky-witch would be taken back up by her own if she proved herself worthy. The chieftain had been doubtful, and wanted to just kill her. The chieftain, they all knew, would soon be out of favor when the shamaness was proven right once again.

_**KP**_

"Tango Delta Seven Seven Three, do you copy?"

"This is a secure channel, Tango Delta. What are you doing on it, and how did you access it?"

"Stuff it, pencil-pusher. Just get me Betty. I just found _Kim Possible_," she spoke into the mike as she flew west, rather than north, knowing Ecuador was their safest bet at this point.

"Say again, Tango Delta," the man on the other end grit out after a long pause. "Did you say….?"

"I found her, you idjit. And we need a safe haven, and a good doctor. There's a whole lot of Columbians that would like to barbeque _both_ of us about now."

"Understood. What is your bearing, Tango Delta?"

She told him as Kim stared with glassy eyes as if not able to believe where she was just then. She couldn't help glancing at her wrist now and then, and it broke her heart to see that grizzly wound. But at least she was alive. That was all that mattered to her. She was still soaring after she heard that shrill cry and turned to see the redheaded savage come flying out of the jungle to save her.

Like it was fate.

"Can you reach the station at Montepa," the radioman asked. "It's just over the border."

Shego tapped the fuel gauge, and assessed the aircraft's range. The pilot might have left his small plane behind for whatever reason, but he not bothered to refuel. "I should just make it. Where do I land?"

"We'll direct you on approach. Just head ten degrees north by northwest of the city," she was told.

"All right, guys. We're…forty minutes out, and looking forward to some friendly faces for a change.

"I can just imagine the look on Bets' face when they call her with this news," she glanced over to tell Kim.

The redhead was slumped in her seat, out cold.

"Go ahead and rest, Pumpkin," she smiled, knowing how she must feel. "You're safe now."

As if hearing her in her sleep, Kim gave a soft moan, but smiled faintly.

"You're safe," Shego murmured, and gave her own thanks to the old man back in Japan who had sent her on what anyone else might have considered a mad quest.

_**KP**_

Dementor heard the news just before noon in his prison hospital cell, and howled like a madman when the one solace for his circumstances was ripped from his grasp. Victory, so long thwarted by that redheaded witch, was lost yet again as news of her miraculous return from the dead reached him.

He screamed so long, and so loud, that they finally had to drug him.

In his own cell, a sulking Drew Lipski scowled all the darker, and spat, "I _knew_ it. Miss All-That just can't help ruining my day."

No one said anything about where she had been, or who had found her.

The news that Kim was back was enough for now.

_**KP**_

"Hi, mom," she smiled in the smiling, tearful redhead's face as the door opened at her knock. "Can we come in?"

"Oh, Kimmie," Ann Possible cried, and hugged her daughter fiercely as Betty and Shego stood by watching. "Look at you? You're thin as a rail. Didn't you eat….?"

"Oh. Ugh. Mom, don't remind me. But I could use a few home-cooked meals," she admitted.

"Come in, come in," Ann cried, not even noticing the media parked out front, but held off by the tweebs, and the presence of Global Justice's top agents.

"Kimmie-cub," her father smiled up from her chair, for once not hidden behind a paper as he held his arms up to her. "Welcome home, sweetheart."

"It's good to be home, dad," she admitted, leaning down to hug him back.

She turned to look at the sound of running feet, and gaped at the two, lean teenagers that stared back at her. "Wow. You tweebs really grew up," she smiled at them.

Jim and Tim just stared. To her shock, they didn't have a single sarcastic word to say. They just ran over, and hugged her.

"I missed you guys, too," she said as one of them, Tim she thought, but wasn't sure, gave a watery sob.

"There are some issues that need to be addressed now that you're home," Betty stated as she came in behind her and Shego.

"I see you haven't changed, Dr. Director," she smiled. "Still all business."

"It's my job, Kimberly. And I have _two_ problems here now that you're back."

"Only two," Kim quipped as she moved to settle on the couch, still recovering, and not minding that Shego hovered. Not minding a bit.

"Let's say two major ones."

"Okay, shoot? What's the sitch?"

Betty smiled faintly for a moment, then nodded at Shego who sat beside her in civilian clothes again. Once out of the jungle, she had packed away her costume with her ninja gear, and didn't even pull it out even when they got back to the states.

"Technically, Shego was out-of-sight, out-of-mind. Once she returned, however, and in such a public fashion, I'm duty-bound to take her into custody again. After all, she remains a wanted fugitive."

"What," Kim gasped, staring at her as she sat next to Shego, her left arm moving as if to try to embrace her. "But you can't….!"

"No," Betty asked.

"Kim," Shego stopped her, her voice somber. "It's all right. I knew what I was facing when I left…..Ron's custody."

"We all know where you were at," Betty told her. "But I'm sure he appreciates your discretion."

"You know….?"

Betty shot Kim a look that suggested she might not be as bright as they all thought.

"All the same, I knew what I was facing when I left," Shego said, and smiled at Kim. "And it was worth it to find you again, Princess."

"Emmie," she groaned, making Shego blush dark green all the adults around them echoed her.

"Emmie," her mother repeated.

"It's…..personal, mom," Kim blushed. "You see….."

"Kimberly and Shego had been seeing one another before she vanished, and was presumed dead," Betty pointed out frankly.

"Is there _nowhere_ you don't stick that nose," Shego complained as James Possible frowned.

"But….weren't you engaged to Ronald," he asked.

"I…..I was about to break it off, dad. It wasn't working out. For either of us. Especially since I realized I liked girls more than boys. Or Shego, more than anyone else."

James frowned. "So….. There aren't any other boys?"

Ann sighed. "Have you contacted Ron yet, dear?"

"They don't exactly have phones where I've been, mom," she told her mother. Then she looked up at Betty. "Isn't there something you can do, Dr. Director? Shego was going straight even before I….got lost. And she saved my life when she found me when she did. I wasn't sure how much longer I could have lasted down there."

"Please, Kimmie," Shego snorted. "You had those guys running in circles, and you had secret bodyguards to boot. I was the one about to get blown to pieces when you showed up."

"So, I take it we have you two to thank for the sudden disruption in drug smuggling of late?"

"I….might have burned a few fields, and distracted a few guerillas," Kim said quietly.

"Fourteen fields, two drug towns, and she had half the rebel army hunting her. I didn't have to find her. I just had to follow _them_."

Betty shook her head. "I haven't gotten those reports as yet, but we knew something was going on down there. I should have known."

"So…. Is there something you can do for her?"

"First, tell me one thing," the one-eyed agent asked blandly. "Emmie?" Shego blushed again, but had enough composure to demand, "You mean you're admitting you don't actually know everything?"

"Shego," Kim sighed. "It's short. For Emerald. It's…._my _pet name for her."

"Wait. So you two…..?"

They all glanced at James, who was only then figuring out things as his frown deepened.

"I'll explain later," Ann assured her daughter.

"Emerald," Betty echoed with a faint smirk.

"Not. One. Word," Shego drawled so quietly that even someone like Betty Director had to take notice.

"I may be able to do something," was all she told the women as she remained standing, watching the pair. "But you have to do something first, Shego."

"Name it."

"Give yourself up. Now. Come outside with me, and publicly surrender. It'll go a long way to helping me pull off what I hope to try."

"No," Kim gasped. "I just got back, you can't just….."

"Possible. She's _still_ a wanted felon. Until that is cleared up, again, she cannot just come and go at your request. However, your word may carry a lot of weight when I suggest that maybe her year long _hunt_ to help find and restore our famous local heroine should count for something when she is sentenced this time."

Kim looked stricken, but Shego nodded.

"I'll do it." She turned and smiled at the redhead. "Don't worry. I'll be fine. You just take care of yourself, and get better."

And in full view of her family, and Dr. Director, she leaned over and gently kissed her.

It wasn't the first kiss they shared since their return, but it was the sweetest in Kim's mind since she daringly bestowed it upon her in full view of those that even Kim had yet to explain her own relationships.

Her mother, however, only smiled. Her brothers gaped. Her father frowned.

Betty simply stared, as impassive as ever.

"Ready," she asked Shego after a moment.

"Sure."

"I'll be wanting to debrief you in the near future, Kimberly. After all, technically you were on GJ time when you were lost. I suggest avoiding the press for now, and simply resting and recuperating. I'll be sending over one of my own medical technicians when you're ready to try fitting a prosthetic."

"A…?"

Kim held up her arm, and had a bizarre vision of Gemini's rocket-launching appendage. "I'll arrange my own, thanks," she said firmly.

"As you wish. Shego," she turned to her as the woman in a simple skirt and blouse that managed to get in under the radar until people noticed she had that distinctive green skin sighed, and climbed to her feet.

"I'll be in touch," she winked.

"So will I," Kim assured her.

"You'll _both_ go through channels until we get this settled," Betty declared, and gestured with a curt nod before leading the way to the front door.

Kim looked ready to cry as Shego turned back at the door, and blew her a kiss. She couldn't help but smile, especially when her father abruptly blurted out, "So you don't like boys any longer? Well, that's a relief."

Ann sighed and looked heavenward as the tweebs sniggered.

_**KP**_

"A few more weeks and you'll be back to your old self in no time," Wade was saying as the leaner, taller young genius finished scanning her arm in person to ensure he had the exact measurements he required for the prosthetic appendage he was building her. That was after a surgeon had 'clipped' the ruined limb so that it wasn't quite as ragged or uneven. It left her forearm half as short as it had been, though.

"I don't suppose you have any news from Shego?"

"She's still in solitary, and the attorney general is still weighing all the testimony. Meanwhile, there are a lot of people picketing for her release thanks to your press release when you credited her with your survival. Saving you, and bringing you back really won her a lot of support," he told her as he put his instruments away, and then pulled out a smaller box he handed over.

"I just hope it's enough," she sighed, and eyed the box.

"A welcome home present," he smiled.

She opened it up, saw the new Kimmunicator, and smiled. "Thanks, Wade. But I don't think I'm going to be up to taking any missions….."

"It's just for my own peace of mind, KP. You've been out of touch a long time. Besides, this one has a few added extras the GJ model doesn't have."

"Oh," she asked, genuinely intrigued since she knew he was now building 'toys' for Betty on a subcontracting basis.

"It has a new genetic-bonding feature, so only you can remove it, or operate it. It also has a panic switch, so if you're paged, and are unable to answer, or switch it on, it will automatically send out an emergency beacon. Useful if you get tied up on a mission."

"It does have a standard off switch for down time?"

"Of course," he told her, frowning as if hurt. "But what I'm most proud of is the nannite-driven battle-armor I've perfected. Just hit those two recessed studs simultaneously, and you're almost instantly covered in the newest, upgradeable battle-armor I could devise. I even added a limited hyper-speed feature to the strength and stealth modes."

"That sounds like it will eat a lot of power."

"That is what I'm most proud of," he grinned. "I tapped a little of the Lorwardian battle tech I have been studying, and developed a neural interlink to the general overlay that lets it power the suit right off your own body's neural-net. Your own kinetic energy will fuel the suit. In standby mode, it has a solar cell option to keep the Kimmunicator battery charged for auxiliary emergencies, and practically speaking, it should last forever."

"Forever?"

"Well, short of a nuclear blast," he admitted. "Even a standard EMP emitter won't shut this baby down, though," he crowed. "It's shielded to _five_ atmospheres."

"What about a jaguar's tooth," she asked, grimacing at the memory.

"Unauthorized attempts to damage or remove it from your wrist would automatically activate the battle-suit," he told her with a grin. "Even if you're unconscious."

"Whoa. Wade, you definitely still rock," she said, but closed the box without putting it on.

"Just trying to keep you safe, Kim," he told her earnestly.

"And I appreciate it. How….? How has Ron been?"

Wade shrugged. "You know Ron."

"Wade?"

"Well, he's been seeing a ninja girl from Yamanouchi. He even brought her home with him a few weeks ago. They dropped off Hana, and left again before you got back. She's apparently even helping him on missions now."

"Oh. You must mean Yori."

"You know her?"

"She's a great girl. Ron's lucky she was there to stand by him when he needed her."

"You're…..not mad?" Kim sighed. "I guess you haven't heard yet."

"Heard what?"

"I thought you'd have already heard first, since you are wired into so many places."

"Kim? What are you talking about?"

"I was about to leave Ron, Wade. Not as a friend, of course. But our engagement….well, it wasn't working out."

"But….I thought you guys really loved one another," he frowned.

"We do. As _friends_. Apparently not so much as anything else. And….to be honest, I was seeing Shego just before I…nosedived into the rain forest."

Wade chuckled hoarsely. Then realized she was serious.

"_Shego_?"

Kim nodded.

"As in…._Shego_?"

She nodded again.

"As in…..dating? _Shego_?"

She nodded again.

"And _I_ didn't see this," he exclaimed. "How did I not see this? I see everything! How could I not…..?"

"We were being really, really careful. We hoped she could…..clear her record, and start over, but before that happened….."

"Dementor dropped you out of his flying lair, and supposedly got you killed," Wade concluded.

"Right. So," she asked. "You don't think I'm…?"

Wade laughed. "Weird? Kim, we're both weird. We've been weird from the start. But if you're asking if I'm going to judge you? Nah. You're still my best friend, and I want you to know I'll always be there if you need me."

"Thanks, Wade, that really means a lot right now," she said, and impulsively hugged him before the young man pulled back uneasily, and gave a weak smile before backing to the door. Kim wasn't insulted. She knew Wade still had a thing about being touched.

"Sorry. I'm just really glad you're here. I'm really glad _I'm_ here."

"No problem, KP. I should have a working prototype for you to try in a few days," he told her, nodding at her shortened limb.

"Just….no exploding fingertips, or whatever."

"Please," Wade glared as if insulted. "Do I look like an amateur?"

She chuckled, and shook her head.

He left, and she carried the box with her new Kimmunicator back to her seat on the couch where she had been watching a lot of television lately. Mostly news, if she could find something besides the fluff pieces about her miraculous return. Some made it sound as if she were blessed by God, and made it back on her own. She knew better. She had been ready to drop at the end. Only finding Shego had saved her. It had been close, and she knew it.

Eight days at home, and she was already feeling restless. True, she had to admit her mother was right that she was not even close to being fully physically recovered. And she was still insisting she find a therapist to help her work on her insomnia, and her nightmares when she did sleep. She tried to tell her mother it wasn't necessary. She hadn't suffered either when she had been flying back with Shego. At her side, Kim had been completely relaxed. Completely content. She had rested peacefully.

The nightmares didn't start until the day after Shego was sentenced to serve out her full nine life sentences.

Betty wanted them to remain patient, telling them the courts were just sounding out Shego's sincerity in wanting to clear herself. Only part of Kim's nightmares involved growing old waiting for Shego to be released.

Meanwhile, she went online, and reactivated her student accounts in NYU just so she could finish her coursework online for the time being. It gave her something to do, and let her focus on something beyond sitting and waiting to get better.

It was still boring.

Meanwhile, she was pondering the next step. But she didn't want to out herself to the world until she knew it was all right with Shego, who would be going along for the ride de facto when she admitted their relationship. Since even she wasn't sure if Shego was straight and experimenting, bi, or outright lesbian, she didn't want to presume to speak for her.

That left a lot up in the air.

At the moment, Betty wouldn't even let her visit, since she felt the timing was wrong. Never mind she had sat and mooned over her in court every day. She had yet to have a private conversation so she could find out how Shego wanted to proceed. Just then, she would proudly scream the truth to anyone that would listen, but….. She had to wait to hear from her lover.

Then, too, the longer she waited, the more she started worrying. She was hardly the pretty, unblemished teen champion she had been just over a year ago. She was mauled, scarred, and far from the same fresh coed she had been when they met in that New York club. Maybe Shego was starting to rethink things herself, and was deciding she didn't want….

Kim shook her head.

That couldn't be right. She stayed with her from the start once they reached Ecuador. She could have taken off at anytime, but she saw Kim all the way home. She had seen her naked. Saw her scars, and the marks left by her trials, but she had not run then. Surely she wouldn't now?

Would she?

She stared unseeing at the television, and just wished she could talk to her. Just for a few minutes.

_To Be Continued…._


	6. Chapter 6

_I do not own any Disney character named herein, and am only writing a nonprofit story for entertainment purposes only._

**Kim Possible: Lost**

**By LJ58**

**VI**

Shego sat in solitary, ignoring the five heavily armed guards outside meant to keep her inside if she decided that she wanted out.

As if five guards were half enough to stop her if she really wanted out.

Only the hope that Bets could come through kept her sitting in the small, dingy cell that didn't even have hot water. Well, not unless she heated it herself. The men continued to watch her, obviously not believing her change of heart any more than some of the jurors. She supposed she couldn't blame them too much. She had made a career out of being sly, and playing suckers who thought they knew her.

Part of her wanted to shout how much she had changed, and how much she loved Kimmie. Watching her sit there staring at her for three long days during her trial had been agony. Unable to touch her. Unable to speak to her. Unable to tell anyone how she really felt. She would have entered an insanity plea if she thought it would have helped, because why else would she have fallen in love with a woman that had consistently kicked her green butt, and stuck her in jail so often? She, however, did not want to out Kim like that.

First she had to talk to her. To make sure she was really ready to take that step. Sure, she had blurted out the truth with her folks in front of Cyclops, but she was still loopy from all that had happened to her at the time, and she wondered if they didn't think she was just still off her rocker.

Either way, she had to wait. She had to show everyone, especially Kim, that she was serious. She could handle it. She had to handle it.

Besides, after more than a year in hell thinking her dead, she was pretty sure she could manage this incarceration knowing Kim was home, and safe again. All was right with the world, and she was sure Kim's friends and family were taking care of her. Good care.

She just wished she were there to help.

Especially as every time she closed her eyes she saw that wild-eyed savage bursting out of the jungle in time to save her life.

What an image that was, she couldn't help but muse.

Outside her cell, one of the guards was eyeing the monitor on the sealed chamber, and asked one of his friends, "What do you think is making her smile like that?"

"Don't know. Can't be good, though, knowing her. Better stay sharp."

None of the others argued.

Inside the cell, the brunette simply sat back on her cot, smiling vacantly over her own fantasies.

_**KP**_

"Hello, Miss Possible. Do you know why you're here?"

"Because my mother is a busybody with too many connections," she asked the GJ shrink as she sat in the chair wearing a casual sundress, and her new prosthetic she masked with gloves worn on both hands. The anchor on her forearm was surprisingly realistic, and looked like real flesh, but the hand didn't have that camouflage since the intricate parts were too detailed to accept permanent covering like synthetic flesh. The moving parts would have it cracking and peeling after only a few hours. Hence, the gloves.

"What about the nightmares she and Dr. Director both mentioned?"

"I'm worried about someone."

"It has nothing to do with your traumatic experiences in the jungle?"

She snorted. "No big. I won't say I've survived worse, but it's been close. I mean, alien invaders? Can you really top _that_ one? No, I'm just worried about someone, and no one will let me….."

"Why don't you tell me about what is really bothering you," she asked when Kim trailed off, looking sullen.

"How much of this goes right back to my mother, or Dr. Director?"

"All they will hear from me, Kimberly," the gray-haired woman with placard on her desk declaring her I. Spot said, "Is that you either are, or are not ready to return to active duty. Or that you are, or are not coping with your trials."

Kim chewed that one over.

"Why don't we start with your jungle misadventures? If they are not bothering you, maybe you could go through them so I can better understand….."

"This," she asked, waving her left arm in the air.

The woman said nothing. "Is that what you want to discuss?"

Kim glowered. "No. I want to go home. No, scratch that. I _want_ to see….."

She trailed off again.

"You do have doctor-patient confidentiality here, Kimberly. You can tell me anything. No one else will ever know it. Or hear it from me. I keep the majority of my files here," she pointed at her head. "And only write down my prognoses."

Kim sighed.

"You want to know what's bothering me?"

Dr. Spot nodded. "If you feel ready to share."

"Fine. Two months ago, the woman I love rescued me from very certain death. She brought me home, and her reward was a prison cell. Betty swore to try to help her, and so far, I can't even get in to see her. They won't even let me talk to her. And I haven't heard one damn word of what is going on. _That's_ what is bothering me."

"Oh, I see. So…..? You and….."

"Shego. I _love_ Shego."

"A curious, but not uncommon pairing in your…..world. Many adversaries have ended up best friends, or more at times when they share certain…..experiences."

"You don't have anything else to say about it," Kim asked after the woman just sat there, waiting for her to speak again.

"It's not my place to say anything, Kimberly. If you love her, you love her. Is that really what is giving you nightmares, though? Your lover's plight?"

Kim sighed, and sank back in the overstuffed chair. "Well…"

Dr. Ina Spot merely waited patiently when she faltered.

"I…..I worry about growing old waiting on her. About…..never seeing her again. Or finding out…..she doesn't care anymore because….."

"You were maimed?"

Kim's composure finally cracked. "Yes," she admitted. "This…..dress…..covers a lot of scars. A _lot_ of scars. What if she thinks…..I'm not pretty enough for her any more."

"Weren't you scarred before you were lost? I mean, your life must have caused more than a few injuries judging from some of your misadventures I've heard about before now."

"Sure, but not like….."

She gestured helplessly at herself.

"And without seeing Shego. Or speaking to her, you don't know if she still wants you?"

"Yeah."

"That's only part of it, I think, though. You're holding back a lot if your mother's descriptions of your nightmares are accurate, Kimberly. Maybe you don't even realize that you're doing it, but I think you're repressing something, and it's tearing you up inside."

"I don't know what," she shrugged. "I mean, I'm alive. I coped. Now I'm home. No big."

"Yes, big. I think you have something you have yet to face, and that is what is really eating you up. Until you get to that, and face it, you can't begin to cope with it, or the other issues you've described. I certainly can't advise Dr. Director allow you into the field. In your current state, you could slip up and create even more problems than you're already facing."

"Yeah. That's what started all this. Not facing….problems."

"Oh?"

"I…..I was distracted the day we faced Dementor. I was stupid, and preoccupied, and got careless."

"Why don't we start there, then," the doctor asked.

"Fine. But it's going to sound stupid."

"I'm sure I've heard worse," she smiled.

"I don't know," Kim sighed, and chose to bull ahead as she began describing her moral dilemma that tormented her over a year ago.

And led up to what followed.

_**KP**_

"Well," Dr. Director all but demanded as she came into the office but did not set after Kimberly finally left three hours later.

"Now, ma'am, you know I can't give you _details_ of my sessions, but…..it is my professional opinion that putting that young lady back into the field anytime soon would not only get her killed. It might get a lot of other people killed. She's not ready."

"That's your professional opinion?"

"Yes."

"So, Ina, what's your unprofessional opinion?"

"That if you don't let her speak to Shego very soon, she's going to do something _very_ stupid."

"I gathered that one myself from the expression I received when she walked past me. Now, tell me something I don't know."

"Essentially, she's still dealing with what happened. Generally speaking, she is coping with what happened quite well. She came face-to-face with her own mortality for the first time in years, and accepted it. What she can't seem to face, or cope with, is her fear she's either lost, or will lose Shego. Either through her incarceration, or because of her injuries and scars."

"So. What's your prognosis?"

"Let her see the woman. Soon. She needs to talk to her, and settle some personal issues, or she's going to self-destruct."

"And the nightmares?"

"In my expert opinion, she'll likely have them for a while until she learns to fully cope with the awareness of her own mortality that I mentioned. Much like another young agent I once counseled," Dr. Spot told her knowingly.

"Point taken, Doctor. Thank you."

"Anytime, Dr. Director. And remember, I've always got time for you, too."

Betty glanced over her shoulder as she turned to go, and drawled, "I'm fine, Ina. But I should turn you loose on Will."

"Oh, no. All that one needs is a few dozen enemas," she laughed.

Betty only smirked as she left the office.

_**KP**_

"Kimberly," Betty told her as she stood in the door of her parent's home, the Possibles not quite ready to let her run off again even if she wanted to try.

"Dr. Director."

"If you'd like to take a ride with me, I think someone would like to see you?"

"Shego," she brightened hopefully.

"I've arranged a visitation. I thought you two might like to touch bases, and you can tell her how things are going on my end."

"How are things going?"

"We'll speak on the way. Do you need a coat, or…..?"

It was a chilly autumn day, but Kim wore a light green turtleneck with black slacks, and shook her head. "No, I'm fine."

"Should you tell someone…..?"

"Mom, I'm going with Dr. D," she shouted into the house, making the agent glare at her.

"Fine, Kimmie-cub," Ann Possible shouted back. "Take a sweater."

"Mom," she groaned, and ignored her advice as she pulled the door closed, and followed the agent to her private car. "Sometimes, she still thinks I'm still two."

"All mother's do," Betty advised her.

"Even yours?"

"Especially mine," she admitted with a dry smile.

"So, what's the sitch? Is there any progress…..?"

"I've managed to get the French, German, and English authorities to drop all their warrants against her. The Italians are weakening. The Japanese, oddly enough, claim they had terminated their wants months ago. The Columbians are still more than a little angry, but no one is taking them too seriously."

"So…?"

"The _Americans_ are still unwilling to take a chance on her after she flagrantly defied the terms of her first pardon to rejoin Lipski the way she did."

Kim's smile faded. "But didn't you tell them…..?"

"I told them everything, Kimberly," she stated pointedly. "Oddly enough, that only made them less willing to listen."

Kim glowered. "Why? Because I'm with her, or because she's with me?"

"We're talking about a bunch of old, and very old-fashioned men, Kimberly."

"Let me talk to Shego," she said quietly. "Maybe she has some ideas."

"That's why you're here, Kimberly," Betty told her. "Believe it or not, I do try to keep my word."

"I appreciate that," Kim said, glancing out the window.

"How is Wade's prosthetic holding up?"

"Pretty good," she admitted, both of them knowing she had spent the past three weeks practicing daily with the new prosthetic. And not just her self-defense moves. She had to be careful just picking up a glass, because the new hand had insane strength and gripping power, and could literally bend steel if she tried hard enough.

"I'm still learning to…..manage the cybernetic control mechanisms," she admitted. "Mom made me swear to use paper cups until I master it, though," she blushed.

Betty grinned. "No rocket fingers?"

"Oh, please," she groaned. "Like I need such lame gadgets," she complained, not mentioning the fingertip laser, or the computer data-link option built into the hand that would made her an instant hacker, or instant can opener, depending on the circumstances. That on top of the fact the new appendage that had ten times her normal strength in those steel digits.

She had groaned about boys and their toys when Wade demonstrated it the first time, but she didn't deny she wasn't a little pleased since those things could be handy in her line of work. Whenever she got back to it.

Betty chatted idly about low security missions, and got her take on a few things as they continued upstate to the maximum security federal penitentiary where Shego was being held. She noted Kim was getting more and more anxious the closer they got, and considered Ina's words a few days ago.

"Here we are," she said as they finally pulled up in the visitor's lot of the prison.

All Betty had to do was flash her badge, and they were swept right through. No one even questioned Kim's presence. Several guards even welcomed her back.

Thirty minutes later, after five checkpoints, and a near strip-search, she was finally allowed into the special cell designed to hold Shego.

When the door opened, Shego barely even looked up.

Until Kim cleared her throat.

"I'd thought you would be happier to see me," she drawled as the dark head rose from her pillow, and the woman gave a wordless cry of delight, and jumped up to hug her.

Every guard on station gaped as Kim Possible hugged the dangerous felon back with genuine affection.

"Stand down, gentlemen," Betty ordered the seven men that were on duty. "I'll call you when I need you.'

"But….?

"Are you questioning my orders, gentlemen," the uniformed agent growled in a manner that could and did intimidate tougher men.

All seven men left without another word.

"You've got ten minutes, ladies," Betty told them, closing the doors. "Then the monitors and guards are back."

"Ten minutes," Shego groaned. "That's not even time for foreplay," she teased.

"I've got so much to say to you. To ask you," Kim said, still hugging her, but being very careful of her shortened arm as she had been unable to take her prosthetic into solitary with her. Security just wasn't that willing to take chances with a Wade/KP prosthetic that Shego might exploit. No one paid any attention to her 'watch,' not realizing how much more dangerous it could be if she wished it.

"Me, too. Are you doing all right? I haven't heard anything since they dumped me in here?"

"I've seen a shrink for a few nightmares," she shrugged. "Mostly, I've been missing you."

"Me, too, Princess," she kissed her lightly, and only by force of will. What she really wanted was not for here and now. "The missing you part, that is."

"Shego…..I have to ask. Do you mind that I'm… Well, not perfect any more," she asked quietly, holding up her stubby forearm.

"That's the stupidest thing you've ever said, Kimmie," Shego shook her head at her, taking her arm in both hands, and gently kissing the end. "I fell in love with you. All of you. Scars included. I should be more worried you can't stand my pigmentation."

"I don't care about that," she gasped. "Besides, you're gorgeous. I'm….."

"Don't you dare say ugly."

"You saw my scars," she grimaced, knowing the panther's claws had ravaged her side pretty badly until that strange pygmy woman had apparently sewn her up.

"We both have scars. Inside and out. What matters is we care for one another. Or….has that changed now?"

"Not for me," Kim told her. "I….I've been thinking of telling everyone about us. I thought….that might help get you more support if…?"

"I considered the same thing," Shego admitted with a laugh. "But I didn't want to out you unless you were ready."

"Me, too."

"Aren't we silly," she smirked, and kissed Kim's nose before hugging her again.

"Emmie, I'll wait for you forever. But if I have to, I'll break you out of here."

"Don't even think about it, Pumpkin. I swear, you're so impulsive. Just charge right in, don't you? Listen, you want to tell the world about us, do it. Then contact Senator Janus. She owes me a favor."

Kim blinked.

"What, you thought you were the only one that traded favors? Anyway, she owes me, and she's part of _our_ community. She'll be happy to help you. Tell her….._Kitten_ needs her."

"Kitten," Kim shuddered. "You should know. Some of my nightmares involve cats."

"I don't doubt it, Kimmie," she told her as she slid a hand gently down her left arm. "But when you get scared, just remember two things."

"Yeah?"

"One, you lived. You _beat_ them. That makes you scarier."

Kim smiled.

"And, two. If another cat even looks at you cross-eyed, I'll barbeque its furry butt for you."

Kim smiled brighter, and hugged her all the more as the door opened behind them. "I love you, Emmie," she told her. "And this time, I'm not going to keep that a secret."

Shego smiled as the returning guards gaped at their clench as they shared a far deeper, more passionate kiss than before Betty cleared her throat. Loudly.

"Time, ladies. Let's not abuse the warden's hospitality."

"I'll be back," Kim told her, letting her good hand slide reluctantly down Shego's arm, keeping contact as long as she could before she left the cell. Then the door closed, and Shego was hidden behind five inches of plasma-resistant steel that Kim knew her lover could peel like a banana if she really wanted to bad enough.

She took a deep breath, and smiled before turning to the guards.

"Take care of my Shego," she told them bluntly, "Or I'll hear about it."

Betty rolled her eyes as she followed Kim out of the solitary wing.

"Take care of 'my' Shego," Betty asked as they drove back to Middleton. "Could you be any more conspicuous, Kimberly?"

"What? I'm being honest. That's what she wanted. It's what we should have done from the start."

"It could backfire."

"Lying will only make things worse. I won't be dishonest any longer. Frankly," she admitted with a chagrined expression. "I'm not very good at it anyway."

"So I've heard," Betty murmured as she drove on.

Two days later, Betty belatedly heard the incredible news that Kimberly had held a press conference claiming the American government was holding Shego as a political hostage because they knew she was gay, and in a relationship with Kim Possible. A very well known senator from California was speaking out on their behalf, and demanding inquiries as every gay rights group across the planet rallied for the unlikely pair.

Betty resisted the urge to bang her head on her own desk.

_To Be Continued….._


	7. Chapter 7

_I do not own any Disney character named herein, and am only writing a nonprofit story for entertainment purposes only._

**Kim Possible: Lost**

**By LJ58**

**VII**

Shego stepped out of the prison just three months after she went in wearing the dark green dress Kim had sent for her to wear when she got out. The size was perfect, as were the matching shoes. All she had to do was look up and she found the lean, smiling redhead standing at the curb next to purple atrocity of a car she couldn't help but recognize. She realized the redhead was wearing a more modest light gray pants suit, and gloves. On both hands.

"Nice work," she nodded at the very realistic hand in that left glove.

"Wade's work," she said, holding up the hand, and flexing it as easily as her own lost hand.

"I've said it before. It's nice to have a genius on your payroll."

"Isn't it?"

"But did you have to pick me up in the barfmobile," she asked teasingly as they met, and hugged lightly, well aware that the guards were watching, and a legion of press were just across the street, loathe to trespass with GJ guards watching the area for the official release of the newly paroled Shego.

"What's wrong with my car?"

"Are you kidding me? Look at the color?"

"Oh, if that's all it is," she grinned as they climbed into the car. "How about this shade," she asked, and Shego shook her head as the paint seemed to shimmer, and turn a dark green. "Better?"

"Only you," Shego grinned as some of the press snapped pictures of the car changing colors. The smile gave Kim hope because she was certain it meant Shego really was happy to be with her, and hadn't just told her that for whatever her reasons.

"Adaptive camo-paint. The tweebs invented it."

"Of course," she said, and leaned back in the seat, and turned to smile at her. "So, what's the plan, Princess?"

"Tonight, a celebratory meal at my house."

"You're kidding?"

"Nope. Mom insists. And I think she wants to get to know you better."

"And your dad?"

"Is just glad you're not a boy."

Shego shot her a cynical expression.

"I'm not kidding. Dad's always had a thing about me and boys. I'm not sure why."

"That explains Stoppable….. Hey, I'm sorry," she said in the same breath before Kim could say a word.

"It's all right."

"No. No, it's not," she said shaking her head. "Ron….. Ronald really helped me through a bad time after you…disappeared. I probably wouldn't even be here if it hadn't been for him. He's….a much better man than I…..expected."

Kim only nodded.

"Have you talked to him?"

"He's still….away," Kim replied quietly.

"I know where. It's where he took me. So…..You still care about him," she asked leadingly.

"Yeah. But he's still just a friend. Which I'm telling him the moment I see him again," she stressed as she started the car, and Shego's eyes rounded at the dull thrum of the powerful turbines under the hood.

"Just what is under there?"

"Let me put it this way, I could go suborbital if I had to in this baby," she grinned, and put the car in gear.

Shego, to her surprise, grabbled both sides of her seat, and exclaimed, "Just don't do it now," with a worried gaze in her green eyes.

"I thought you liked…..?"

"The right ship for the right job. And this is not a…..a…..jet. Or anything close."

"Actually….."

"Princess…..!"

Her howl of outrage had Kim laughing as she speed-shifted from ground to air, and the car suddenly rose on powerful thrusters as the airfoils extended, and lifted the car high into the air before the former thief could blink.

"Put this thing _down_," she hissed, still clinging to her seat.

"Oh, come on. It's fun!"

"It's one accident away from a recall," she protested.

"Shego. Seriously. It's been completely refitted from the ground up. Really, the only thing left that is original is the frame. The rest is all modern, upgraded, and augmented tech from Wade and my brothers' work."

"Doesn't their stuff _explode_?"

"They've gotten better."

"Prove it."

"You want proof," she grinned, and glanced at the navigation console.

"Pumpkin…"

Shego howled again as the car rose almost vertically, crested, and screamed back down so fast Shego was sure she was about to die before it suddenly leveled off, and settled smoothly onto the road into Middleton. They had just crossed three hundred miles in just a few minutes.

"Impressed?"

"Nauseous," Shego told her. "Don't _ever_ do that again."

"But….."

"Kimmie."

"I thought you liked flying," Kim pouted.

"Exactly. I like flying. I like being in control. In a jet. A _real_ aircraft. Not a tin and glass coffin that should have been recalled decades ago."

"My Sloth is better than any jet," Kim pouted as they turned off the interstate, and headed toward her family's house. "For one, it has full stealth, it's practically indestructible, and those windows are _rocket-_proof. And it did just get us away from all the media before they could even try to follow us," she pointed out.

Shego slowly released her seat, but glanced around uneasily as larger, faster trucks and cars sped past them.

"And its slow on the ground?"

"Please. Don't you remember me catching you and Ed that time you were using the Keppler?"

"In _this_? You were driving this?"

"An earlier version, but the same car."

Shego sighed.

"I do like the paint," she relented. "How did they do that?"

"It's a special multilayered paint that reacts to special frequencies created by sending an electric surge through the body. You just hit the right frequency associated with a certain color, and you can shift through the whole spectrum."

Shego shook her head. "You know, if Dr. D had been really smart, he would have just kidnapped your family, and made you work for him."

"As if."

"I'm just saying. I mean, _he_ once built a _three-story _machine to open a jar of pickles."

"He did not," Kim exclaimed in bright laughter as they pulled into her parent's drive.

"I swear. And then, when it failed, I opened it for him, and he swore he loosened it first."

"Definitely a guy thing," Kim nodded.

"Oh, for certain. So….." She looked down at her hands, still astonished she was finally paroled into Kim's custody. "Do you think your family really don't mind that we, ah, that we're…..together?"

"Mom is holding her breath. Dad? Well, he's clueless. So don't expect much. He's still worried a boy might be involved somewhere."

"Your family is nuts, Kimmie."

Kim shot her a telling expression as she shut off the car, and the paint shifted back to its default maroon base. Shego grimaced at it as they climbed out, caught her expressions, and said, "Okay, okay. I'm one to talk. I mean, you have met my brothers. I'm pretty sure they take the cake, the pie, and the whole bakery."

Kim chuckled. "They aren't that bad."

"You _have_ talked to Hego?"

"Okay, you've got me there. He does sound like he's quoting comic books a lot of the time."

"Trust me, he is," Shego sniggered. "So, what's for dinner?"

"Vegetarian lasagna. Hope you don't mind, but I still have issues with meat after my, ah, jungle vacation," she said grimly.

Shego, who had the story already during the trip home, didn't complain. "Just remember to work off those calories," she teased. "I like my Princess lean and fit, not soft and pudgy."

"Soft," Kim sputtered as they paused at the door. "Tomorrow. GJ's workout room. We'll see who's soft," she growled.

Shego grinned, more than happy to see Kimmie had not lost her competitive streak.

"Hey, Kim," stereo voices shouted as the twins looked up from the managed mass of electronics in front of them on the floor as they simultaneously watched television as their father read his paper as if oblivious to their doings. "Neat getaway. You had those reporters whining like babies that you wouldn't stop and give them a comment," Jim went on.

"But they got a great shot of you smoooooooching," Tim cooed, making kissing noises.

"Boys," growled the man behind his paper. "There will be no teasing your sister over her public displays of affection. Although," Dr. Possible drawled as peered over the edge of said paper, "In my day….."

"I know, dad," she quickly cut him off with a kiss on the cheek. "Is mom in the kitchen?"

"Making the bread, Kimmie-cub. She thought you might like some homemade garlic bread since you decided to cut meat out of _your_ diet for a while."

Shego tried not to laugh at the way he commented as if he were somehow accusing her of something.

"Sorry, dad," Kim told him as if understanding. "But you know it's probably best if you cut it out of your own diet. Or at least cut down."

His snort told her exactly what he thought of that idea as Kim led Shego into the kitchen where a tantalizing mixture of odors filled the air as Ann bustled around getting the evening meal ready as if she had not already spent a full day in the hospital before returning home.

"Kim. And, Shego," she smiled at her. "You're just in time, dear. The garlic bread is about to come out of the oven, and everything else is ready. If you want to help me set the table, we'll be ready to eat."

"Sure, mom," she smiled, and headed for the cabinets. "Oh, what are the tweebs working on this time," she asked, having been away at GJ all day doing the final session with Dr. Spot that had finally freed her to return to 'active' duty even though she was only a provisional agent while she finished her college degree.

"Some kind of electronic signal amplifier, if I understood them right. They got the idea that if they could amp certain signals remotely, they could switch off media cameras so they couldn't film the house without permission."

"So, that's why you let them turn the living room into a workshop?"

"Well, I am getting tired of having to ask to get to my own drive, dear. If they can get rid of a few of them by shutting down their cameras, or remote feeds, I won't mind a bit."

"And we all know they deserve to be annoyed for once," Shego sniggered.

"Exactly," Ann agreed. "I won't say the media can't be helpful," she allowed. "But they do take things too far at times."

"Oh, yeah," Kim agreed, having heard one rumor that she, Shego, and Ron were planning a three-way honeymoon now that she was back. It made her almost glad Ron had yet to return, although she had stopped by to visit his parents, and explain things to them firsthand. His dad was the usual sympathetic and understanding sort. His mother only sighed, and shook her head.

Hana, being Hana, simply hugged her, happy to see her friend home and safe.

It made her dream of her own children, but she realized that just now that was unlikely considering her choices in love.

"Go ahead and sit down, Shego," Ann told her. "You might remember that we're pretty informal around here."

"Uh, yeah," the woman drawled, and took a seat as she recalled her last stay in the Possible household. It made her wonder why she willingly came back.

Then she watched Kimmie as she interacted with her mother as they got the table ready, and had to smile. Her own family had never been so close. Especially after the comet. Her father and brothers looked on her as the black sheep even before she had 'crossed over.' They had certainly never been so welcoming and tolerant. Her mother had been her one source of love, and…..

She cut off that thought, and forced her attention on Kim again.

"I hope you don't mind vegan lasagna, Shego. Kim's preferences aside, I am trying to get James to cut back on meat. He had a scare last year, and his doctor told me he was ignoring his warnings about his diet."

"What kind of scare," Kim asked, having heard nothing of that until now.

"The kind where my daughter didn't come home," James drawled as he walked into the kitchen just then. "But I'm fine. Your mother just worries too much. You know how these medical doctors are," he added with a grin. "Let me tell you, in my day…"

"Honey. Shut up," Ann told him affectionately, and the rocket scientist sighed, but took no offense in his wife's words as he sat down, and only smiled at her.

"Boys," Ann called as she set the pan of steaming lasagna on the table after she slicked up the freshly buttered bread to serve on a platter next to the pan. "Supper's on the table. Move it, or lose it."

"Better grab it while you can," Kim advised as she reached for her own slice of bread as Ann poured fresh tea for all of them before taking her own seat.

Shego didn't doubt her. She had seen the twins eat once. She doubted they had changed that much from what she had seen.

_**KP**_

Ron paused in the strip mall as he picked up a newsmagazine, and saw a familiar image on the most unlikely of sources. EXPOSED magazine had an image of Kim and Shego kissing, the banner declaring "_Kim Possible: Back, and Out_!" The lurid suggestions in the taglines were the usual fare, and it made Ron sigh.

Still, seeing the familiar face back in the press was almost…..a relief. Until he noticed her hands. Why was KP wearing gloves?

Then he remembered the _hand_.

"Ron-San," Yori asked.

"Look," he told her as he held up the magazine for his companion as she approached. "It would seem Shego's quest was more than I realized."

"Do you wish to return now," she asked, eyeing her lover who had finally welcomed her to his bed. After she twisted his arm just a little. Several times.

He smiled. "If only to settle things. I think it's plain we've both moved on," he told her.

"Hey, buddy," the clerk of the book store drawled in thick English. "You reading' or buyin', cause this is no library," he demanded with a thick, Southern accent in spite of his obviously Japanese appearance.

"Buying," Ron said, and fished out the two thousand yen he felt far too much for the rag. But he had to read the story, if only to know what was being said. He had not even heard Kim was alive. Let alone that she was now public with her once covert relationship with Shego.

Shego.

That brought up a lot of complications in itself, as he knew she was still a wanted felon. Wasn't she?

The man rang up his purchase, and he simply folded the magazine and shoved it into his back pocket. While they were in casual civilian clothes today, he and Yori were on the clock. A gang of thugs had been hitting stores all around Tokyo lately, and the local law had finally begged Sensei's help since some of them were better than average martial artists.

They had been hanging around all day, window shopping, sipping cold drinks, and passing themselves off as a couple with nothing better to do but waste time. They had even been run out of a few shops when the owners or managers realized they weren't buying, just browsing.

"I don't suppose you spotted anything suspicious yet," Ron asked as he left the shop with Yori at his side, not seeing anything else with Kim's distinctive features on any of the colorful magazines or papers around him.

"Only the poor reproductions of what they are trying to pass off as ninja gear," she admitted.

"Yeah, I saw that," he told her, knowing what she meant. The mall obviously catered to tourists because it was full of English papers and magazine, as well as all kind of martial art reproductions, and silly faux weapons. Then again, Japan had a large Americanized section of youth that likely drooled over the stuff as much as any tourist. "Well, back to work," he said, and sauntered through the crowded mall once again.

Yori followed without comment, genuinely astonished that Kim Possible was still alive. She just hoped this did not shatter her own dreams again.

Still, the image on that magazine had been suggestive. Very suggestive.

It made Shego-San's earlier grief far more understandable.

Only it also confused her, since she was still certain Kimberly-San had been dating Ronald.

She sighed, wishing she understood Americans better, and simply followed Ron.

**KP**

Shego realized Kim still had problems when they reached the apartment the redhead had rented for the pair of them until they could make other plans. With her degree virtually finished, Kim decided to do some online study before pursuing her graduate work just to give herself a break, and it just made sense to her to stay in Middleton again in case she needed her family. With Shego paroled in her 'custody,' that made renting an apartment for the two of them easier than staying at home.

Not that it mattered with most of the world having heard of their relationship by now.

What troubled Shego was Kim's reaction when they reached the apartment just around ten after leaving her parent's house. They parked to one side of the apartment complex, and started toward the side stairwell when a low growling made Kim freeze as she spun around and saw gleaming, green eyes peering out of the darkness at her.

Shego made out the tomcat instantly. She dismissed it just as fast.

Kim, however, gave a ragged cry, and shrieked as she literally leapt up the first flight of steps, and slammed against herself against the side of the building, eyes wide and staring as she fumbled for the door behind her which she couldn't seem to open.

Shego started to tease her, until she looked up and saw the look of genuine terror in her eyes as she spotted the cat sauntering from under the stairs toward Shego. Kim actually screamed before ripping open the apparently locked or jammed door with her powerful prosthetic, and fleeing inside.

"Kimmie," Shego shouted, and followed her without bothering with the stairs herself. She ran down the hall, found a door that had been literally shoved open, splintering the frame, and went in to find Kim huddled in a corner of the small, but homey living room behind an overstuffed chair.

"Kimmie," she knelt in front of her, the redhead looking up from behind her knees with her arms wrapped tightly around her legs. "Are you all right?"

"I….. I feel…..stupid," she said with a ragged laugh. "I just….. I saw those _eyes_, and…"

"You're entitled," Shego told her, carefully and gently lifting her to her feet. "Considering all that happened, you're more than entitled.

"But it was just a…..a stupid…..c-c-cat," she shuddered. "A…._little_ one!"

"I could go fry him for you," she suggested with a faint smile.

"No," Kim gasped, and gave a watery laugh. "I'm fine. I just…..I was startled, and….. I'm fine now."

"Kimmie, you're not fine. Fear like that? That's not fine. It's not good. You need help."

"I can deal," Kim protested. "I'm…dealing with it. I'm good at dealing. I'm….."

"Princess, even heroes need help sometimes," she said, and led her to one of the bedrooms after easing her from behind the chair. "Now, why don't you call your brainy buddy, because we're going to need someone to fix some doors. Even I'm not going to try sleeping with our doors wide open."

"Sorry," Kim murmured as she sat on the end of the bed in what she had decided would make Shego's room. "I….."

"Kim. You don't have to apologize. Trust me, we all have our fears and phobias."

"I never did….."

"You never faced hungry predators trying to make you a snack, either."

Kim looked down at her left hand, and shuddered. "I can't believe….."

"It's all right. But you do need to get help. Even I can see that."

Kim sighed, and nodded absently.

"You all right now?"

"Yeah. I…..I should go to…..my room….."

"You can stay," Shego told her as Kim made no move to rise from the bed in Shego's room.

Separate rooms was just their way of giving one another privacy as they tried to move slow this time, and regain the time they had lost.

"Besides, we do have to get someone to fix those doors. Remember?"

"Oh. Right," Kim murmured, hands clenched in the quilt as she sat there. "There goes the deposit," she sighed.

"You call your friend. I'll go see about rigging the doors so they at least stay closed until the locksmith gets here."

"All right," she murmured as Shego walked out of the bedroom, and grabbed her cell from her jacket before she walked back down the hall to check the outer door.

Kim had really plowed through it, and that hand of hers was stronger than she let on if she went through that reinforced safety door complete with deadbolt without even stopping.

"Ann," she murmured as she stepped outside onto the landing, seeing the dark gray tom down on the parking lot that had started the whole dilemma. "It's Shego. We have a problem," she told her without preamble.

_**KP**_

"What do you mean I'm still off duty," Kim protested when she returned to the local GJ offices the next day.

"Wade told me he had to replace _two_ security doors, _and_ an apartment door last night," Betty Director told her bluntly. "When questioned, Shego admitted that you went ballistic last night when an alley cat jumped out at you."

"It didn't jump at me," she protested weakly. "It…"

"Yes," Dr. Director asked coolly as Kim sputtered and flushed.

"I was just startled."

"Kimberly, when you are startled you jump. Or curse. You even punch someone at times. You do not bolt, tearing off reinforced security doors to hide in your own apartment."

"She told you all of that," Kim grimaced as she looked away from Betty's level and accusing stare.

"Dr. Spot is waiting on you. This time, try to be more forthcoming. She is here to help."

"Talking about things isn't going to help me," she protested. "I just need to get back….."

"And if someone uses your fear against you in the field? Because we both know it's possible, Kimberly. No pun intended. What then?"

"I can handle it."

"Excuse me if I don't feel you can. Even Shego is worried about you."

"But….."

"You either see Dr. Spot again, or you can consider yourself on _indefinite_ leave," Betty cut her off.

"Perhaps I could help," a low, masculine tone suggested.

They both looked to find Ron standing in the now open door they had not even heard open.

"Ninja," Betty sighed. "Could you _try_ to make a little more noise."

"I heard the shouts, and was worried you might be in trouble. I came in to make sure you weren't."

"Ron," Kim stared at him, then saw the willowy shadow just behind him. "Yori?"

"Hai, Possible-San. We were very glad to hear you have survived."

"But she's still having trouble facing what happened to her."

"As I said, perhaps I could help," Ron suggested.

"How," Betty asked. "She already duped our staff headshrinker, and then ran off to commit random acts of violence fleeing an _alley cat_."

"Wade briefed me on the way in," Ron cut her off as Kim blushed crimson. "As to how I can help? I thought you might like to come and see Sensei again," he told Kim.

"That might be a good idea," Betty nodded before the redhead could reply.

"Shego has to come with me," Kim sputtered. "Remember, she's…."

"Shego is always welcome at Yamnouchi," Ron told her. "She knows that."

"What about…her parole."

"As she will still be with you, I don't foresee any problems."

"I'll make the arrangements," Ron told them. "We'll talk before we leave," he added, nodding at Kim. "And, I really am glad you're back safe, Kim," he told her with a warm smile.

"Uh, thanks. I guess…..we do need to talk."

"Whenever you're ready," the surprisingly mature young man she almost didn't recognize now told her. "I'll leave you two to finish yelling at one another."

"We were not yelling," Kim sputtered, glaring at the senior agent. "Well, I wasn't," she huffed, and turned back to Ron.

Who was gone.

"Ninja," Betty sighed, not admitting that Stoppable actually kind of creeped her out these days with the way he came and went.

"Yeah," Kim grumbled. "But I wasn't yelling."

Dr. Director just shot her a quelling glare.

"Go pack, Possible. You're going on vacation."

"Fine. But I'm considering it paid leave!"

Betty said nothing to that.

"And I want back pay for that missing year, since you said I was still officially employed," she added before she stormed out of the office.

Betty only sighed.

"She's definitely been learning things from Shego," she muttered.

_To Be Continued….._


	8. Chapter 8

_I do not own any Disney character named herein, and am only writing a nonprofit story for entertainment purposes only._

**Kim Possible: Lost**

**By LJ58**

**VIII**

"You okay, Kim," Shego asked her as the green-skinned woman walked alongside her. Just ahead, Ron and Yori led the way up the mountain that hid the secret school of mystic ninja from the greater world.

They could have flown right to the gates, but Ron insisted that this time, a traditional approach would be better for her. He suggested it would give her time to think about just what she was doing here, and how to approach her trials.

Whatever they might be.

She found it hard to argue with him. Especially after the way he just accepted her stammered explanation/apology for what she felt was her own fault in trying to hide her growing relationship with Shego. He had just smiled, told her it was fine, and he knew they had both moved on, and matured.

"I guess," she finally sighed. "I never…. I mean, not really….. Well, nothing has ever…bothered me like this. And I faced some pretty rough sitches over the years," she frowned.

"But you knew you could handle them," Shego pointed out.

Kim just glanced over at her, nodding.

"Then you will handle this one, too. I know you will. Like I said, Princess," she smiled warmly. "You've already got through the hard part. You survived."

"Thanks to you," she said not for the first time.

"Give yourself some credit. It took me over a year just to find you," she reminded her. "That was all you out there."

Kim said nothing to that. It still astonished her that she had lost over a full year of her life in that jungle, being chased by man-eating cats, and bloodthirsty drug runners and guerillas. Time, for her, has seemed to stand still while in the jungle. There was no real sense of it passing for her as she literally fought to survive every single waking moment.

"You were there when it counted. And, I, for one, am glad. Very glad," she finally told her.

Shego said nothing as she recalled the past few nights when Kim only slept when she was wrapped in her arms. The woman couldn't even settle down unless Shego was there. The one time she tried to sleep alone in that GJ clinic, she had woke up screaming.

It was as Kim couldn't make herself relax unless she knew Shego were there. With her. Holding her.

"So, any idea how this is going to go," Shego finally asked her.

"No clue. I do know Ron got over his monkey phobia doing something up here. So, I'm hoping Sensei can do the same thing for…."

"Cats?"

"Yeah."

"So," Shego asked with a smile, just looking to get the redhead's mind off things a while. "Let me get this straight. The monkey master has a monkey phobia?"

"Yeah. But, if you remember, Ron was pretty much afraid of everything back in the day."

"Don't I know it," she chuckled, recalling some of his antics. "It always amazed me that he kept coming back with you."

"Because he was also the bravest man I ever knew," Kim said. "As scared as he was, he didn't let it stop him," she smiled his way.

"Regretting he got away?"

"He's still my friend, Shego. It's just…. No. No, I don't regret anything. Except my own stupidity. That's what made me careless. It's what made me slip up. It's what cost us a whole year we could have had…."

"Hindsight's a real bitch sometimes, Kimberly," Shego told her gently. "But don't let it blind you to the future."

Kim smiled.

"Sometimes, you can be really smart."

"Only sometimes," Shego demanded teasingly.

"Hey, I know your former boss," Kim chided her, lapsing back into her own playful manner for the moment.

"Oh, that's low."

Kim only smirked at her.

Ron glanced back at her, and said nothing.

"Ron-San, do you think Master-Sensei can truly help her?"

"I hope so. I don't think I've ever seen Kim afraid of anything. Ever. Yet….."

"Was it not fear that kept her from speaking to you in the first place when she realized your friendship was all that you shared?"

"I think….that's different. She wasn't afraid for herself. She was worried about hurting me, and how the people she thought would see her…."

"Fear is but fear," Ron was told by the young ninja girl. "Whatever it's shape, to give place to one shape, is to give place to all. You must know this better than any."

Ron sighed.

"I know. Kim…. Kim has never truly feared danger, though. It was….her personal fears that were biggest problems. Her image. Her social standing. Her reputation. She could take on the worst villains in the world, but still crumble if someone rejected her. It's….a peculiar balancing act, but….that was just the way she's always been."

Yori nodded.

"And now that balance is shattered, and all her fears now overwhelm her."

Ron glanced surreptitiously over his shoulder at her, noting the way Kim still favored her left arm, trying to keep it away from Shego's sight.

"Yes. The balance is tipped, and if she doesn't regain it, she might just destroy herself this time."

"Then, I hope Master-Sensei can work another miracle," she smiled confidently.

"Goes without saying," Ron agreed as Kim and Shego continued to murmur to one another a few feet behind them.

**KP**

"Welcome, Possible-San," the older man bowed to her as he met them at the gates to the secret ninja academy. "I am pleased that Shego was able to find you without difficulty."

"I wouldn't go that far, Sensei," Shego grumbled, recalling those grueling weeks in the jungle.

"You are here," the old man smiled behind his thick, white whiskers. "That is enough. Come. Stoppable-San shall show you to your quarters. I suggest you rest, for we shall start early in the morning."

"Uhm…. Start what," Kim asked him quietly as she and Shego hesitated when Ron would have led them away from the master.

The ninja master turned to eye her, and nodded.

"It is quite simple. We shall have you undergo a time of purification, and preparation. When you are ready, you shall then ascend to the temple higher in the mountains where many of our….special students go to find peace, or simply prepare themselves for unique challenges, or edification and guidance for….higher callings."

"Oh. That sounds….good," Kim nodded, and bowed to him. "Thank you for this, Master Sensei. I appreciate you letting me come here like this."

"I would do no less for any in need of aid," the serene smile all but glowed as the man bowed back to her. "Now, go and rest. You have had a long path before you. And an early morning."

"So….. Ron went up there," she blurted out, looking toward the cloud-wreathed peak over the plateau where the master had glanced.

"Stoppable-San, as the monkey master, faced his destiny before he came to us. However, his fears kept even him from truly accepting the ordained mantle that awaited," he explained without hesitation, or complaint of her delaying him. "Like him, Possible-San, you must face the shadows that corrupt your spirit, and threaten to deny you your own greater destiny. When you can face those shadows without fear, you will find yourself better able to shape the world around you than ever before."

"Oh," she murmured. "Thank you, Master-Sensei. I do hope you're right. Lately, I've not felt like I was capable of….anything."

Now he scowled at her.

"That is fear speaking," he told her curtly. "And each time you give it place, or allow it to voice its doubt, you will find it burgeoning, growing strong and stronger until it overwhelms you. If you wish to resist it, then you must start by denying its voice."

Kim frowned as she looked away, trying to absorb that one.

"As the clever puppet in Stoppable-San's film instructed, you either do, or do not. There is no middle ground here, Possible-San. You either defeat your demons, or they defeat you. The choice, however, is entirely yours."

She nodded somberly now, saying nothing else.

Just then, she wasn't sure how to respond.

"Go, and rest. I suggest you also meditate. In three days, if you are ready, you will go to the temple. There, you will find your own destiny. And….your greatest fear."

Kim found those simple words made her genuinely shudder as the old man bowed to her one last time, and turned away.

"You okay, Kimberly," Shego asked quietly, coming up behind her to put her arms around her.

"I….don't know," she admitted.

"Just believe in yourself," Shego told her. "You'll make it. I know you will. You can do anything, remember?"

Kim gave a wan smile.

Had she really been that arrogant? That braggish?

"Never underestimate yourself, Princess," Shego whispered in one ear. "It's not you. It never was. Besides, you just think of all you've already done, and you'll see this is going to be a piece of cake," she reminded her.

"I hope you're right," Kim murmured, leaning back against her, taking comfort in her presence.

"I know I am. Come on, we can meditate together," she suggested, turning away, but offering Kim a hand.

She eyed the woman she loved, and smiled.

"Thanks, but…. I think I have to do this part alone," she smiled. "See you at dinner?"

"I'd better," Shego quipped.

"Thank you, Shego," Kim told her before they parted. "For being here. With me, I mean."

"I wouldn't want to be anywhere else," she told her earnestly.

Kim took those words with her as she sought a quiet place to meditate on the day's lessons. Brief as they were, those words the Sensei spoke had filled her mind to overflowing.

One thing loomed in her mind, though. Three days. Three days, and she would face her greatest fear.

Even she wasn't truly sure what that might be. Or how to defeat it.

She genuinely hoped it was something that she could manage. Too many still depended on her. Shego depended on her. There were her family, too, and her friends, and all those she might yet aid. And she didn't want to let any of them down.

She couldn't let them down.

**KP**

The temple was harder to reach than Yamanouchi as they climbed up a vertical cliff, negotiated a very narrow path through a surprisingly thick, and dangerous forest, and then finally climbed towering steps up to a massive, stone temple carved into the side of the last cliff before them.

Ironically, the purification and meditation had been no picnic either.

Still, she was here now. Outside the temple where, as Shego had put it, fate waited for her to kick it in the teeth. Fate, and fear, waiting just inside the huge temple.

A temple with only one heavy door barring anyone from entering at their whim.

"How do we get inside," Kim asked, staring at the huge, stone door.

"A master must ring the bell for his petitioner," Sensei told her, gesturing to the gong setting to one side of the door. "When the door opens, you have one minute to enter, or the door closes, and you must await a new trial when, or if, allowed."

"I get it," she nodded, and stepped toward the door. "Let's do it, then. I'm ready."

"Wait," Sensei stopped her as she stood before the heavy door of the mountain temple.

Kim froze, not all that eager to face whatever might be inside anyway.

"First, hand over your weapons, Possible-San," he told her. "This must be done without _any_ crutches."

She swallowed hard, and then pulled off her Kimmunicator band, and handed it to him. "Careful with that. It's….booby-trapped."

"I shall keep it safe until your return," the master assured her. "And….your other weapon?"

She frowned, then noted his eye was fixed on her prosthetic hand.

"My…hand?"

"A weapon, Kimberly-San," he called her less formerly, "Is still a crutch if you rely on it to the exclusion of your own will and wit. Unless you can face your fears without crutches, you will never truly be free of them."

Kim felt the knot in her chest, and found herself shocked by the idea of going into that temple where the master had assured her only the most grueling trial of all awaited without the use of both hands. Then she recalled Ron's admission earlier that day.

Of how he had tried to cheat himself, and ended up falling the trial five times before he learned to trust his own instincts, and finally succeeded in overcoming the fear that let him transcend his phobias, and truly master the mystic art he now embodied.

"Oh, right," she finally choked, and pulled up her sleeve to press the genetic lock that let her remove the neuro-links from the cybernetic device. She undid the four more common straps, and then let the hand fall away, leaving her with the shortened forearm, and nothing else.

"I have every confidence in you, Kimberly-San," he told her, sliding the now lifeless hand into his robe's voluminous pocket. "Now, step inside, and remind yourself how truly extraordinary you can still be."

She nodded, then stiffened, and bowed to him, pride surging as she caught a glimpse of a flash of green not too far away where none should be.

She resisted the urge to smile as she straightened up, and walked to the heavy door.

Master-Sensei rang a heavy gong to one side of the door, and unseen hands opened the door. Even as she stepped through, the door was already closing.

So much for a minute.

Kim stepped into the mountain temple, feeling she was ready for just about anything, and immediately froze.

Her heart thudded as she saw a truly huge black panther sitting indolently on a dais before her. Nearby, another sleek, black body padded by in the shadows of tall trees that seemed to fill the massive chamber around her, and her breath caught as she heard the low, all-too-familiar growl of the big predator as it passed her. She began to back up, but the door behind her was already closed, and if Sensei was to be believed, it would not open until morning.

She did not doubt him.

She gave a soft yip as she realized a third cat was sitting nearby, just watching her.

Now, she decided, would be a really, really good time for help.

She was sure she had seen Shego out there. Offering her moral support, or more, if necessary. Yet could even she reach her if she truly needed her?

Back pressed firmly to the door, she stared with wide, gleaming eyes at the two big cats that now moved to stand in front of her. She swallowed hard, trying not to hear the thunder of her own heart, or betray the fear that must be emanating from her like a living thing just now.

Part of wished Shego would break in, and smack them down for her.

Even as she realized she was trembling so hard that her knees were ready to collapse, and tears were spilling from near-bulging eyes. If only Shego…..

She had a revelation as she stared into the cat's dark green eyes.

Was she making Shego just another crutch?

She fixed her eyes on that near hypnotic stare, and found herself dropping to her knees as she pondered that realization.

She wanted her.

She needed her.

She loved Shego, but…. Had she made her just another crutch in her life?

She swallowed hard, her gaze fixed on the cat before her.

It wasn't moving.

Just….giving that low, rumbling growl she had heard far too many times back in the jungle.

She forced herself to calm down.

Maybe…? Maybe they were tame cats?

Maybe there were just here to show her she didn't need to…..?

The pair snarled in tandem, and both leapt as one, fangs bared, and claws outstretched.

Kim screamed, and rolled under them even as they pounced.

She was up and running into the improbable forest that grew dark around her even as she fled past the dais where the larger cat just stared as she fled past it into the darkness. She never slowed down even as the animal just turned its head to watch her headlong flight.

_To Be Continued…_


	9. Chapter 9

_I do not own any Disney character named herein, and am only writing a nonprofit story for entertainment purposes only._

**Kim Possible: Lost**

**By LJ58**

**IX**

Kim felt like she had been running for hours.

Each time she slowed. Each time she tried to catch her breath. She heard them.

Felt their fetid breath at her nape. Their claws raking at her heels.

And she ran again.

She was back in the jungle.

Lost.

Without friend, or weapon.

Surrounded by deadly cats that wanted to tear her apart. To feast on her. To end her life.

She was very close to collapse when she saw the small shack in the shadows ahead. Bolting across the clearing, she heard the snarling howl of one of the felines, but didn't look back. She raced at top speed toward that door, and slammed it behind her.

Then stared at the shack she had entered.

What had seemed to have been a small, ramshackle hut was now a long hall filled with doors.

Even as she turned around, she realized the door behind her was gone.

"What is going on here," she panted, trying to make sense of things.

Going to the first door, she tentatively found the door unlocked, and slowly pushed it open.

"It's about time," Bonnie Rockwaller snapped at her, dressed in their old cheerleading uniform, and holding out a set of pompoms. "Do you know how long I've been waiting? How long everyone has been waiting?"

"I….. I can't….."

She had started to reach for that silly pompom, but belatedly realized her left hand was gone. There was no way to hold it.

Bonnie sneered at her.

"Of course. You always have some excuse to foul things up for the rest of us. Don't you, K?"

Kim just gaped, then turned and walked out of the door, slamming it behind her.

She stared at the next door, suddenly fearful of what was there. Fearful of what might be waiting.

Pulling open the next door, she saw Ron standing there. A younger Ron.

In his old mission gear.

"I don't know, KP," he told her, turning away from her as if unphased by the fact she seemed to be standing in a door in the middle of a hot air balloon that was miles high in the air. "I think you're taking this coaching thing a little too far."

"Too far," Kim heard herself saying, and turned to see another Kim standing there, looking….stubborn. "I want them to win," she fumed.

"They're kids, KP. They just want to have fun."

"Winning is fun," that other her protested.

Kim slammed the door.

Back in the hall, she recalled all too well when she had let her innate competitiveness overshadow other aspects of her life. Many times to her detriment.

Every door took her to her past. Her recent past included.

One door had her screaming in fear when she opened it to see a lean, snarling jaguar with a missing ear bunching up as if to leap out at her.

It took her what felt an eternity to approach the next door.

Only two to go.

Just two.

And maybe one would actually help her without further crushing what remained of her pride.

Kim opened the door.

"You're still afraid of what other people would think," Shego demanded as she stood up, scattering the impromptu meal they had shared just before that sitch with Dementor.

"I said that wrong," the other Kim, the one that still had her arm protested. "I'm just saying…."

"You're saying you're still ashamed of loving women more than men," Shego countered, cutting her off. "Or is it just _me_ you're ashamed of here," the green-skinned woman demanded.

"No!"

"I used to think you're the gutsiest woman I'd ever met, Kimberly," she shot, "But I think I've changed my mind. You're just another coward. Afraid to stand up, and be herself."

Shego shook her head, and turned to walk away.

"Shego, wait," Kim cried, even as Kim felt her eyes brim as she watched that scene she had somehow forgotten until now. "Please."

Kim watched herself reach out toward her. Knew what she was going to say.

"I'll tell him this week. I swear. I'm going home to see the folks this weekend, and….."

The Kimmunicator chirped, and Kim knew who would be calling her. And why.

She never had the chance to talk to Ron. Or her parents. She ended up in South America, and falling into the jungle.

Kim slowly closed the door, and stared at her clenched right hand.

She had never really stood up that week. Never spoken to anyone while she had the chance. She had just….run away again.

Yet Shego still came after her. Still cared enough to save her life.

Kim walked to the last door. This one at the far end of the hall, and stared.

No more running, she told herself.

Shego had risked everything for her. Her life, and her freedom. Even her reputation, which she knew meant everything to that often frustrating woman.

What had she risked?

Ever?

Kim opened the door.

She was standing back at the main door in the temple's entrance.

She was staring at those panthers prowling around that big, massive feline that eyed her with cold eyes.

"No….more," Kim hissed, and charged the first panther.

The cat met her mid-leap, but Kim twisted in mid air, and her kick sent the animal flying to smash into one of the trees around them. It hit with a howl, and went down hard. It didn't get back up.

The second snarled, but didn't try to attack, it paced around her, watching her.

Kim didn't hesitate.

"No….more," she shouted again, and with a rolling somersault came up behind the animal, leapt on its back, and then sent three quick knife strikes with her bladed palm into the side of its head. The animal howled, and managed four steps away in a drunken stagger before collapsing.

Kim straightened herself, eyeing the bigger cat on the dais with cool, grim eyes, and gave a faint smile.

"No more," she told herself, and charged the animal.

Her first kick drove it back, but even as it went flying, it changed in midair, and landed on two feet.

"Not bad, Princess," the mocking tones of a too-familiar villainess sneered as she gave her a come-hither gesture. "But you're still not in my league."

"No more," Kim howled, and charged the obviously false Shego.

They exchanged kicks and punches for what seemed an eternity, evenly matched in spite of Kim's maimed limb which still managed to help her block quite a few blows. Then Kim managed a hard palm strike that sent the faux Shego flying, smashing into a tree, and bouncing to the jungle floor. When she stood up, it was Ron facing her.

The expression on his smug face all too reminiscent of that Zorpox episode when he had crossed over not once, but twice thanks to mad science.

"You think you're all that, Kimberly Anne," Ron sneered, cracking his knuckles. "But you're not. You're not even close," he cackled with maniacal laughter that would have put Drew to shame on his best day.

"You're…..not…..Ron," she spat, and made far shorter work of him than she had Shego.

Then Ron, driven to his knees, stood up again, and this time Monkey Fist stood before her, and smiled coldly.

"My turn," he smirked.

In that instant, Kim had an epiphany.

"No. No more," she said again, but this time, turned her back on him.

"You turn your back on me? I'll teach you…..!"

Kim intercepted the hands just before they touched her, and flung the apparent monkey master back into the dais where he had begun as a giant feline. The moment he struck the dais, Kim recoiled from the flash of light, and she found herself suddenly standing in a large, empty chamber.

She eyed the empty chamber lit by widely spaced torches, and frowned as she saw there was nothing else around her.

Four bare walls, and that huge dais in the center of the stone chamber.

She belatedly recalled what she had asked Sensei.

"What is inside," she had asked him while preparing.

"Only what you bring," he had told her cryptically.

She understood now.

She finally remembered what was important.

She drew a deep breath even as she heard that massive door slowly grating open again.

Had it been that long already?

She walked over to the door, and stepped outside, seeing the Sensei meditating nearby as the sun was just peeking over the horizon.

"Have you found your way, Possible-San? Or did you…..?"

"I'm fine, Master-Sensei," she smiled, and bowed to him, feeling strangely refreshed considering. "Thank you."

He rose with a fluid grace that still surprised her from one so old, and eyed her carefully before he nodded.

"I see. You did well," he told her, and handed over her prosthetic, and other devices.

"I won't say, 'no big,'" she told him solemnly. "Because it was. I had….forgotten what was important. Forgotten a great deal, in fact," she admitted. "But I remember now, and I remember what made me a hero in the first place."

"Oh?"

"Yes. It wasn't fearlessness. Or even the thrill that drew me. I forgot that from the start, I just wanted to help. Anyone. Everyone. In the end, I just wanted to help, and that was what gave me the courage to do what I did. That, and the people that believed in me. Who loved me."

"Indeed. Then you have learned a very valuable lesson," he nodded.

"Yes. Now, I have to go apologize to….quite a few people," she admitted as she refitted her hand in place for the climb down.

"As you say. I will leave you to return with your friend," Sensei told her, nodding toward a certain boulder where a flash of green was made out just before it vanished again. "Who is not quite as stealthy as she thinks."

"To be fair, she was worried about me," Kim smiled fondly.

"Of course. I will let you two go ahead. Tell Stoppable-San I shall be along shortly."

Kim nodded, and all but ran to the sloping cliffs where Shego waited at the top of that long climb down. Just then, she was looking forward to it.

Behind her, Sensei walked into the still open doors, and eyed the empty chamber.

Then he spotted the three bodies that lay slumped in the shadows.

"Brothers? I trust the lessons went well?"

"Never…..bring her back here," the older monk groaned, favoring his ribs. "Even the monkey master did not kick so hard," he moaned.

"To be fair, she was striking not at you, but at her own fears," Sensei reminded him.

The other two monks said nothing. They were still unconscious.

"I daresay, Master, that she subdued them quite well," the old monk groaned again, and sagged back against the wall.

The monkey ninja master only smiled, and bowed to his brothers before leaving the temple.

"Until next time, my brothers."

"It is….definitely time to retire," the old monk muttered as the doors shut behind the current master.

**KP**

Kim's return to Middleton, and GJ, made quite the media event.

Especially as she seemed to have regained much of her former daring, and all of her spirit.

The first thing after apologizing to Ron back at Yamanouchi was to apologize to her parents for keeping them out of her life while she had been trying to work through her own attraction to the woman she loved.

She had already apologized to Shego several times, and the woman was getting tired of hearing it.

"Sometimes you can _really_ go overboard with things," she complained at one point. Then swatted her, and added, "But that's part of what I like about you."

"Like," Kim had huffed.

Shego's knowing smirk said all Kim needed to know.

That first night back at their apartment, however, she needed to set one thing straight in her own mind. After they had locked up for the night, shared a very good meal, and watched a film they had both wanted to see, Kim went to freshen up before she walked into Shego's bedroom wearing a robe.

While they had their separate room for privacy's sake, Kim wanted to do this in Shego's room to show her how she felt.

"Shego?"

The green skinned woman turned from preparing for bed, and frowned as Kim just dropped her robe.

"Kim? What are you….?"

Shego just stared at the redhead who had just stripped off her robe, but was making no move to approach her. She didn't say a word as she just looked at Shego, and then pulled off her cybernetic hand, too. She dropped it on a table, and then stepped forward.

"Shego."

"Kim?"

"Can you…still love me? Can you….still love this," she asked, looking down, her good hand gesturing at the scars from her mauling, indirectly indicating her stunted arm.

She looked up at her, and smiled.

"I can put on a….mask, but…. At the end of the day, this is still the real me now. Can you….?"

"You idiot," Shego rasped, and stepped forward to hug her.

"Shego," she sniffed, smiling faintly as she sagged into that fierce embrace.

"I told you the first time you got all self-conscious that your scars don't matter, Kimberly," she told her quietly, pointedly letting one hand slide down her maimed arm. "So let me make this clear. I love you. Every inch of you," she said, and leaned down even as her hand cupped and lifted the scarred end of her forearm to her lips as she had once before.

She gently kissed the scarred flesh, and looked into Kim's green eyes.

"Every inch, Princess."

Kim wept silently as she flung her arms around her, and just hung on to her.

"I love you, too. I guess….even I still need reassuring, though," she finally burbled.

"We all do, Kimberly."

"Shego," Kim sighed, her head resting on her shoulder.

"Yes?"

"I kind of like when you call Princess," she said with a soft sigh.

Shego gave a faint chortle.

"I think you like more than that… Princess," she said, and leaned down to kiss her lips this time. "Ready for bed?"

"Hmmm. Always," she smiled, and didn't even blush when Shego took her by her maimed arm, and led her to her bed.

_End….?_


End file.
